Quarterly Compliance Review – March 2023

The compliance world is always evolving and changes are constantly taking place. Understanding how these changes affect your engagement letters can be a laborious task that takes time, especially if you need to go and search for the information yourself.

As an OverSuite member, our experts do the research for you, formally on a quarterly basis, and ad-hoc as changes come to light. 

What did we review?

This quarter we have reviewed…

• Changes to the professional body regulations to understand their impact on terms and conditions
• The scopes and service schedules to ensure there are no changes to legislations

What has changed?

There have been no changes to the professional body regulations that impact your engagement letters.

However, there have been small amendments within the Terms & Conditions of our letters, in particular regarding the fees paragraph.

None of these updates require an immediate re-issue of your engagement letters and can be dealt with at your next client renewal.

Here’s a full breakdown…

Legislative Updates

There have been no legislative changes that have required us to make any updates to our engagement letters.

General Updates

Based on discussions with our compliance experts, the following general updates have been made to the Fees paragraph of the Terms & Conditions to clarify and strengthen communication:

Clause 15.4 We have added in ‘at least annually’, to add clarity and ensure you have the option to re-price annually:

“Any work to be carried out beyond that in a fixed fee quotation will be charged at normal hourly rates, details of which are available on request. We reserve the right to increase our hourly rates at reasonable intervals (at least annually), without notice. Please contact at any time if you would like the current list of hourly rates.”

Clause 15.12. We have added ‘to suspend’ to clarify that you have every right to suspend the services offered should you need to:

“Reserve the right to suspend or stop work on your affairs entirely where any fees due from you remain outstanding days after the issue of the relevant invoice. intend to exercise these rights only where it is reasonable and fair to do so.”

Clause 15.16 We have added the word ‘usually’ to ensure complete clarity and cover you if your fees don’t rise in accordance with annual inflation:

“Our fees will usually be increased in accordance with annual inflation.”