Supporting our clients and profession

EY’s global policy on conflicts of interest and the associated guidance documentation are updated regularly to consider the increasing complexity of our assignments.

This policy also complies with the most recent standards issued by the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants and takes into account the code of ethics of the legal profession.

EY evaluates the risk of a conflict of interest before each new assignment, which involves a rigorous procedure to identify whether the services to be provided and/or existing client relationships may give rise to a conflict. Our conflicts check process provides specific guidance to client engagement teams where necessary on the appropriate safeguards that must be implemented before work can commence.

Independence is a fundamental concept to the audit profession and to EY’s dealings with our audit and assurance clients. Independence forms the basis for EY providing independent assurance with respect to our clients’ financial reporting. It underscores the need for all our professionals to be free from interests that might be regarded as being incompatible with objectivity, integrity, and impartiality. This in turn strengthens the quality of our audits and the advice we provide to our clients.

EY Luxembourg incorporates independence considerations in all assessments, whether starting a new relationship with a client or continuing an existing one.  These assessments make sure that we meet the rules and regulations defined by the Code of Ethics of the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants, by EY on a global level, as well as any EU and local rules from our regulators.

Each year, all employees must also confirm that they meet the requirements of EY’s policies on independence at an individual level in relation to their personal and financial relationships.

Client centricity is one of the strategic pillars of our NextWave strategy. Client experience is key in improving our quality services focus on client satisfaction. In order to ensure the quality of its engagements, EY has introduced a new quality control system based on the policies, tools and procedures detailed in our audit transparency report.

All members of the EY global network carry out client satisfaction surveys.

Two types of internal controls support the quality of our engagements:

• Before the start of each engagement
• After the end of each engagement

Our goal is to make each engagement an experience. For this reason, before the beginning of each engagement, we meet our clients to truly understand their needs and expectations.

When an engagement ends, our commitment to exceptional client service continues. Thus, at the end of any project or engagement, the firm supports our client to understand whether EY's service met the client's expectations, and how we can continuously improve our offering.

To assess our clients’ expectations, we use CX Lens, our user-friendly digital platform. It has been fine-tuned to make it simple, efficient and digitally enabled to collect high-quality feedback via a combination of interviews and supplementary surveys. It gives visibility of potential issues and pain points allowing timely follow-up, ultimately helping to improve client experience.

CX Lens is the single point repository for our client feedback. It covers the four stages of the client journey from:

• Pursuits;
• Engagements;
• Overall relationship;
• And all other 'special' encounters.

Our goal is to collect more valuable feedback from a large number of our accounts (clients). That will give us access to better quality insights and empower our teams to take tangible actions to improve service delivery, build stronger relationships and engineer superior experiences.

During FY23, we engaged with over 146 clients through interviews and e-surveys.

EY Global Executive (GE) signed a “Human Rights Statement” to demonstrate its commitment to promoting human rights inside and outside EY. EY Global Executive and the Corporate Responsibility Governance Council are committed to regularly updating and monitoring our duty to acknowledge and uphold human rights.

Our Global Human Rights Statement builds on our Code of Conduct, to reflect our understanding of the fundamental rights of all human beings and our commitment to promote respect for those rights.

Our EY approach to respecting and upholding human rights is formulated base on the United Nations Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights, which, among other things, state that businesses have a responsibility to:

• Avoid causing or contributing to adverse human rights impacts through their own activities, and address such impacts when they occur
• Seek to prevent or mitigate adverse human rights impacts that are directly linked to their operations, products or services by their business relationships, even if they have not contributed to those impacts

In addition, EY Luxembourg is strongly committed to supporting the Luxembourg Government’s policies for Human Rights, as detailed in the National Action Plan to Implement UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (NAP), adopted on 2 2nd June 2018. Here, the matter “business and human rights” has been addressed by means of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Human Rights are indeed at the core of our sustainability approach.  

At the most basic level, we operationalize our human rights obligations through the EY Global Code of Conduct, supported by a comprehensive communication and training program. More broadly, our ambition is to expand this training into more specialized programs and initiatives that strive for heightened awareness around human rights. This will integrate human rights considerations into our decision-making and broader engagement with society.

We seek to proactively support and promote human rights for the wider benefit of the communities in which we operate. Our objective is to enhance the awareness around and consideration of human rights across the EY network in the interests of all EY people and those with whom they interact. As a professional services organization, we recognize the role we play in the communities in which we operate. We consider not only whether we can perform an engagement, but whether we should perform that engagement. While the specific role of EY may be complex and indirect, it can still be consequential, and we have a responsibility to better understand how EY services, and the clients receiving them, interact with human rights and the public interest at an individual and systemic level.

We are equally as committed to upholding the human rights of EY people. Specifically, we strive to respect the following human rights, in accordance with the EY Global Inclusion and Non-Discrimination policy, in our work environment:

• Labor rights - the right of all people to just and favorable terms of employment
  
• Health and safety — the right of all people to enjoy a physically and psychologically safe work environment
• Diversity, equity and inclusiveness — the right of all people to be respected and valued for their differences, with equitable opportunities and outcomes, in an inclusive environment where all can thrive

We are conscious that our responsibility to respect and promote human rights extends beyond the direct operations of EY into their supply chains, where we seek to influence the broad adoption of labor rights and maintain an active view of the human rights performance of our direct and indirect suppliers, in line with the EY Global Code of Conduct.

Any human rights concerns arising within our business can be raised via the EY Ethics Hotline. The hotline provides EY people, suppliers, clients and others outside of EY with a means to confidentially report such concerns without fear of retaliation.

We are committed to ensuring that all reports are appropriately heard, investigated and remediated as required.