Registrar Reps Furious Over Recent Oxebridge Legal Advances [UPDATED]

(UPDATE: This post has been misinterpreted as reflecting a single legal case against a website. This article was not in response to anything related to that case, but other cases entirely, including the defamation case with G31000, two defeated cases launched by ISO, and a number of others dealing with certification bodies. — CP)

Seems you really can’t teach old dogs new tricks. The usual suspects among the ISO 9001 certification community are going ballistic over the recent series of legal outcomes in response to years of defamation, registrar malpractice and conflicts of interest.

Most of the cases can’t be discussed due to final court rulings, or because they are still underway, but so far we’ve done a good job of handing the CB’s their collective asses, and begun to build a foundation of legal precedence which will provide momentum moving forward. The goal, of course, is to improve the ISO certification schemes by reducing the influence of the deeply conflicted CBs and their puppet Accreditation Bodies, and restore a trusted, objective conformity assessment process.

Certification Bodies have spent the last two decades encroaching into consulting territory (learning nothing from the Enron scandal), while issuing certificates to companies who not only shouldn’t have them, but some of which may have been responsible for the most horrendous public safety disasters in human history, resulting in actual death. However, the CB industry has remained utterly devoid of any consequences, partly due to its obscurity, which keeps it out of the eye of regulators and legislators, and partly due to an aggressive campaign of lies and spin.

At the individual level, we have seen tremendous violations of trust by CB reps and auditors, without a single perpetrator losing a job or being significantly reprimanded.

• The auditor who taught a course on how to hypnotize ISO and AS clients without their knowledge is still working.
• The CB and AAQG rep who said user feedback on standards was “moronic” is still working.
• The LRQA CB executive who issued a server ban on emails regarding a serious complaint alleging collusion in criminal activity, is still working.
• Auditors reported to their CBs for cases of sexual harassment, illegal distribution of client confidential documents, and gross violations of both ISO 17021 and US law… are all still working.

For now there seems to be no limit to the amount of bad — and even criminal — behavior a CB rep or auditor can engage in and keep his job.

Now, in response to recent advances by Oxebridge against such behavior, the last gasps are in full… um, gasp. Sales representatives within international certification bodies are ramping up the defamation, furious that they’ve lost key advertising platforms and are subject to increased questions by their clients. Individual auditors are posting heinous stuff, without any repercussions from their CB employers. This, of course, won’t work, and all such behavior just goes into the pile of evidence which will ultimately be presented, forcing a major restructuring of the entire certification scheme. It may also be used in evidence as more of these cases go forward, and these clowns may find themselves explaining their actions in front of judges and juries, if not legislators. Good luck with that.

So, ironically, it’s in everyone’s best interests that the arrogant, smug CB reps and auditors continue doing exactly what they are doing, and continue to engage in actions which, in any other industry, would have them fired — if not prosecuted. Because in the end, they are going to face themselves, and explain to a frustrated public why their ethics were so impossibly compromised.

(Image credits: © 1975 EC Publications; iStock.)