The international ISO certification body Control Union Certifications had its accreditation partially suspended by accreditation body Raad vor Accreditatie (RvA), but continues to market its services as being accredited regardless.
A dramatic suspension was issued by RvA in June of 2020, stripping Control Union of all accreditations related to its ability to issue ISO 9001 certifications anywhere in the world. At the same time, the Control Union locations in Israel and Poland were removed from the scope of accreditation for all standards, not just ISO 9001.
Nevertheless, no mention of the suspension is made on any Control Union Certifications website. The websites for both the Israel and Poland sites continue to market ISO 9001 and other certification programs. The main website for Control Union still makes the following claim:
Control Union Certifications is accredited by several local and international accreditation organisations, such as the Dutch board of accreditation (RVA) and the Accreditation Services International (ASI).
Oxebridge has written to RvA for an update on what it intends to do to enforce the suspension.
Increasingly, certification bodies have chosen to ignore accreditation suspensions, since the act is largely done out of sight of the public. Accreditation bodies are not keen on announcing such suspensions, under the fear it could open them up to libel or other business lawsuits. As a result, CBs can maintain the public appearance of holding accreditation years after such accreditation has been suspended or withdrawn entirely. While accreditation bodies then have access to courts to enforce their orders, they rarely have legal budgets set aside to litigate such issues.
The International Accreditation Forum attempted to correct this problem by launching its “CertSearch” website, which promised to house up-to-date information on current accreditations. The website has been plagued with problems, however, and currently provides expired data, incomplete and erroneous entries, with low participation by certification bodies. The IAF has refused to make participation in any register a mandatory condition for accreditation.
