In response to a formal complaint filed last week, Bureau Veritas is fumbling to determine just who to forward the matter to.
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Oxebridge discovered multiple pharmaceutical products being sold in Peru while bearing an “ISO 9001 certified” logo on the product packaging. Oxebridge researched the matter and found the product’s manufacturer, Instituto Quimioterapico SA (IQFarma), is certified by Bureau Veritas. According to IAF CertSearch data, that certificate was issued out of the UK office under UKAS accreditation. This is then corroborated by the certificate itself (see right).
Under ISO 17021-1, marking products with ISO 9001 certification language is prohibited, and Bureau Veritas is supposed to verify the proper use of marks at each annual surveillance audit. Oxebridge filed a complaint with Bureau Veritas, asking how it could have certified IQFarma since at least 2013 without ever noticing its products were being sold throughout an entire country while bearing the mark.
Bureau Veritas responded to the complaint by saying it was trying to find out where to forward the issue. Despite the evidence, a representative of Bureau Veritas then suggested that the Colombian office of BV was somehow involved. He forwarded the issue to that office, but there has been no response.
It appears the BV official was confusing Latin American countries.
The actual ISO 9001 certificate, however, clearly indicates that while the certificate was issued out of the UK office, bearing the UKAS logo, the “local office” involved was from the Miraflores district of Lima, Peru. That office is accredited by the Peruvian accreditation body, INACAL, and not by UKAS at all, raising questions about just who issued the certificate to IQFarma.
The confusion points out the problem with huge certification bodies like Bureau Veritas, which often have little idea what their foreign offices are doing, despite ISO 17021-1 requiring that only fully valid certificates be issued and that local offices be properly managed.
Not waiting for the UK home office to clear up the matter, Oxebridge has forwarded the complaint onto the Peru office directly.
