Bureau Veritas’ sales rep in Myanmar and Thailand, Aung Kyaw Sint, not only said the quiet part out loud, he made an entire infographic just in case the people in the back row couldn’t hear him. He full-on admitted that Bureau Veritas, which is accredited to ISO 17021-1, performs both consulting and certification audits. The problem, of course, is that ISO 17021-1 prohibits that very thing.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Aung has been at BV for nine years, so this isn’t the work of a rookie.
His post (here) maps out the “transition” for ISO 9001:2026 and then defines “BV Myanmar / Thailand services” in support of that transition. He lists all the consulting steps, like “documentation support” — something specifically prohibited in 17021 — and then the audit itself.
Have a look at the graphic first:
Now, obviously, that was made with AI, so can we blame this on bad prompts? Not quite. Here’s the text portion of the post, which says the same thing:
If you’re new to all of this, ISO 17021-1 prohibits CBs like Bureau Veritas from offering consulting because it’s a conflict of interest when, later, they audit — and certify! — their own consulting work. But that hasn’t stopped CBs from doing so anyway, and under the “new” International Accreditation Forum (IAF), led by Victor Gandy, the CBs are no longer held accountable when they violate the rule. In fact, the IAF member accreditation bodies help them do it.
Over on Facebook, Aung also posted an ad that shows Bureau Veritas offering both accredited and non-accredited certificates, which is another thing accredited bodies are not allowed to do. In short, if you’re accredited, you can’t offer a lower-cost “non-accredited” certificate as well.
Some of Aung’s posts discuss a company called “Myanmar Bureau Veritas Ltd.” which isn’t included on BV’s actual list of sites, but Aung then uses an official Bureau Veritas email address, so it seems official. For Thailand, however, Bureau Veritas is accredited by the Thai Industrial Standards Institute (TISI), and sure enough, it’s to ISO 17021-1. And, of course, it has the IAF logo on it.
Bureau Veritas is considered “too big to punish,” so the IAF and accreditation bodies refuse to investigate fraud and complaints against the gigantic company. I’d list some links to other articles here on the Oxebridge site about all of BV’s scandals, but I’d be here far too long, and have other scams to write about. (Click here for search results.) One of them involves BV being indirectly responsible for the suicide of Peru’s former president, Alan Garcia. Seriously.
Christopher Paris is the founder and VP Operations of Oxebridge. He has over 35 years’ experience implementing ISO 9001 and AS9100 systems, and helps establish certification and accreditation bodies with the ISO 17000 series. He is a vocal advocate for the development and use of standards from the point of view of actual users. He is the writer and artist of THE AUDITOR comic strip, and is currently writing the DR. CUBA pulp novel series. Visit www.drcuba.world
