{"id":162031,"date":"2026-08-09T22:43:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T22:43:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/162031\/"},"modified":"2026-08-09T22:43:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T22:43:08","slug":"canadian-public-accountability-board-censures-ey-canada-over-answer-sharing-on-professional-development-courses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/162031\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadian Public Accountability Board censures EY Canada over answer sharing on professional development courses"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO, Aug. 9, 2026 \u2013 Four years after saying it would investigate whether employees at Ernst & Young LLP cheated on exams and training courses, the Canadian Public Accountability Board has announced a settlement with EY Canada. This past week, CPAB published an enforcement order<\/a> against the Big Four firm, one that includes an undisclosed monetary assessment to be paid by EY Canada to CPAB to cover the cost of monitoring the accounting firm\u2019s compliance.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

In reaching the settlement agreement, CPAB considered the firm\u2019s \u201ccontinuous cooperation\u201d and the \u201cextensive efforts it has taken throughout this comprehensive Investigation,\u201d including document collection, interviews and communications. The settlement agreement includes a public censure of EY Canada as well as remedial actions that include the engagement of an external consultant, policy review, monitoring, and a \u201ccultural assessment performed by EY-Canada\u2019s Chief Ethics Officer.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Big Four exam cheating widespread in multiple jurisdictions<\/p>\n

In 2019, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged KPMG in the United States with altering past audit work, and cheating on internal training exams. Over the next five years, regulators on both sides of the border would fine Big Four fines for various ethics breaches. As reported by Canadian Accountant<\/a>, PwC Canada was fined over one million dollars CDN by US and Canadian regulators, for the widespread sharing of answers by its accountants on internal training tests.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

In 2023, Deloitte Canada paid $1.59M in fines and costs to Chartered Professional Accountants of Ontario, over the backdating of audit working papers. While the PCAOB penalized Deloitte affiliates in Indonesia, the Philippines, and the Netherlands for widespread answer sharing on internal training and ethics tests, there is no record of a similar issue at Deloitte Canada.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This past week\u2019s settlement between CPAB and EY Canada brings closure to cases involving three of the Canadian Big Four firms. Following news four years ago that the SEC had reached a US$100-million settlement with Ernst & Young LLP over exam cheating, a CPAB spokesperson told the Globe and Mail it would \u201cnow examine E&Y\u2019s Canadian operations to find out whether cheating occurred here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

How the exam cheating occurred at EY Canada<\/p>\n

According to the 17-page enforcement order, accountants at EY Canada cheated on EY Learning Courses from at least 2017 until the second half of 2020, a period of at least three years (incidents of answer sharing also occurred in 2014-2016, however, the Investigation did not focus on that time period).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Moreover, from 2017 to the second half of 2024, EY Canada did not implement a monitoring system designed to detect cheating on assessments. The firm therefore had knowledge of the US SEC settlement and an impending CPAB investigation but did not take action to determine whether controls it had previously introduced were effective.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

EY Learning Courses can be considered part of a chartered professional accountant\u2019s mandatory continuing professional development. A quarter of EY Canada\u2019s courses are developed internally while the rest are created by EY Global or EY US. All EY Learning Course assessments are administered through \u201cSuccessFactors,\u201d EY Canada\u2019s continuing education platform. Answer-sharing was conducted via email and Microsoft Teams.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

EY Canada introduced a number of\u00a0warnings and attestations over the years but incidents of answer sharing continued. Similarly to incidents<\/a> at PwC Canada, \u201cthe participants in answer sharing spanned all levels of professionals at EY Canada, including two partners.\u201d At PwC Canada, a \u201cconsistent mindset\u201d existed in which answer-sharing was \u201cboth widely-known and appropriate,\u201d and part of a \u201ccollaborative culture.\u201d Similarly, at Ey Canada, answer-sharing was \u201ccommon,\u201d not a \u201cbig deal,\u201d and would take place \u201cout in the open, with professionals collaborating in classrooms to complete EY Learning Course assessments.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The Canadian enforcement order also makes clear that it was Ernst & Young LLP in the United States that, in 2019, \u201cidentified an instance where an answer key to an EY Learning Course assessment was circulated amongst EY-Canada professionals.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

While EY-Canada became aware of the fact that the American firm was conducting an internal investigation as early as November 2019, EY Canada did not investigate whether its assurance professionals were engaging in improper answer sharing or otherwise cheating on EY Learning Course assessments.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Colin Ellis is a contributing editor to Canadian Accountant. Title image: iStock 1148942604 (“Ernst and Young (EY) logo on their main office for Toronto, Ontario”) and iStock 954621818 (“censure”) combined.<\/p>\n

\"Canadian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO, Aug. 9, 2026 \u2013 Four years after saying it would investigate whether employees at Ernst & Young…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162032,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[52192,17,52189,52186,52198,52193,52191,27633,52194,52187,52190,52197,52196,8539,43399,52195,15260,52188],"class_list":["post-162031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-big-four","tag-canada","tag-canadian-public-accountability-board","tag-cheated","tag-collaborating","tag-continuous-cooperation","tag-enforcement-order","tag-ernst-young-llp","tag-ethics-officer","tag-exams","tag-ey-canada","tag-ey-learning-courses","tag-internal-training-tests","tag-kpmg","tag-pwc-canada","tag-securities-and-exchange-commission","tag-settlement","tag-training-courses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}