# The Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme Order 2020, Paragraph 70: Impartiality and independence


(1) The verifier must be independent from the maritime operator and impartial in carrying out its verification activities.
(2) To ensure independence and impartiality, the verifier and any part of the same legal entity must not be a maritime operator, the owner of such a maritime operator or owned by such a maritime operator, and must not have relations with the maritime operator that could affect its independence and impartiality.
(3) The verifier must also be independent from bodies that trade emission allowances under the UK ETS.
(4) The verifier must be organised in such a way as to safeguard their objectivity, independence and impartiality. For the purposes of this Part, the relevant requirements laid down in the standard referred to in paragraph 67(2) apply.
(5) The verifier must—
(a) not carry out verification activities for a maritime operator that poses an unacceptable risk to their impartiality or in respect of which they have a conflict of interests;
(b) not use personnel or contracted persons in the verification of an annual emissions report that involves an actual or potential conflict of interest;
(c) ensure that the activities of personnel or organisations do not affect the confidentiality, objectivity, independence and impartiality of the verification and must, for this purpose, monitor the risks to impartiality and take appropriate action to address those risks.
(6) For the purpose of sub-paragraph (5), the verifier must monitor the risks to impartiality and take appropriate actions to address those risks.
(7) An unacceptable risk to impartiality or a conflict of interests will be considered to have arisen, in particular, where a verifier, or any part of the same legal entity, provides—
(a) consulting services to develop part of the monitoring and reporting process described in the emissions monitoring plan, including development of the monitoring methodology, drafting of the annual emissions report and drafting of the emissions monitoring plan;
(b) technical assistance to develop or maintain the system for monitoring and reporting emissions or other relevant information under this Schedule.
(8) A conflict of interest for a verifier in the relations between it and the maritime operator will be considered to have arisen in particular in either of the following cases—
(a) where the relationship between the verifier and the maritime operator is based on common ownership, common governance, common management or personnel, shared resources, common finances and common contracts or marketing;
(b) where the maritime operator has received consulting services referred to in sub-paragraph (7)(a), or technical assistance referred to in sub-paragraph (7)(b), from a consultancy body, technical assistance body or another organisation having relations with the verifier and threatening the impartiality of the verifier.
(9) For the purposes of sub-paragraph (8)(b), the verifier’s impartiality will be considered compromised where the relations between the verifier and the consultancy body, technical assistance body or the other organisation are based on common ownership, common governance, common management or personnel, shared resources, common finances, common contracts or marketing and common payment of sales commission or other inducement for the referral of new clients.
(10) The verifier must not outsource the independent review or the issuance of the verification reports.
(11) Where the verifier outsources other verification activities, they must meet the relevant requirements laid down in the standard referred to in paragraph 67(2).
(12) For the purposes of sub-paragraph (11), contracting individuals to carry out verification activities will not constitute outsourcing if the verifier, when contracting those persons, takes full responsibility for the verification activities performed by contracted personnel. When contracting individuals for carrying out verification activities, the verifier must require those individuals to sign a written agreement that they comply with the procedures of the verifier and that there is no conflict of interest in carrying out those verification activities.
(13) The verifier must establish, document, implement and maintain a process to ensure their continuous impartiality and independence, and those of the parts of the same legal entity, of other organisations referred to in sub-paragraphs (8) and (9), and of all personnel and contracted persons involved in the verification. That process must include a mechanism to safeguard the impartiality and independence of the verifier and meet the relevant requirements laid down in the standard referred to in paragraph 67(2).
(14) When verifying the same maritime operator as in the previous year, the verifier must assess the risk to impartiality and take measures to reduce the risk to impartiality.
(15) If the UK ETS lead auditor undertakes annual verifications of annual emissions reports for a period of six consecutive years for a given maritime operator, the UK ETS lead auditor must take a three consecutive years’ break from providing verification of annual emissions reports for that same maritime operator.

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Source: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/1265/schedule/2A/paragraph/70 (the official version)
Page: https://openlegislation.uk/greenhouse-gas-emissions-trading-scheme-order-2020/schedule-2A/paragraph-70
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives.