16 October 2020
London – ICIS, a global source of commodity intelligence, today announced that the independent assurance review of its price reporting business has been successfully completed for the eighth successive year.
The Price Reporting Agency (PRA) principles are set out by the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) to ensure that commodity benchmark price reporting meets the highest standards.
“I am delighted that ICIS has successfully completed the IOSCO Commodity PRA assurance review again, despite the extraordinary volatility in global markets this year. Meeting the IOSCO standards justifies the confidence that our customers and the markets have in the integrity and credibility of the information we provide,” said Stephen Burns, Editorial Director at ICIS.
The IOSCO principles support the ICIS purpose to connect data and customers to make some of the world’s most important markets more trusted and predictable. The eighth successful audit follows the recent news that ICIS was granted authorisation by the Netherlands Authority for Financial Markets (AFM) in accordance with the European Benchmarks Regulation (BMR).
This external audit also aligns with the requirements of the Benchmarks Regulation (BMR) for commodity benchmarks (paragraph 18 of Annex II) as outlined by European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). For more information regarding ICIS Benchmarks authorised by AFM, please see here.
The areas assured by BDO LLP include governance structures, controls, maintenance of Editorial integrity, and conflict management processes in relation to the creation of commodity benchmark price assessments.
A full report detailing how ICIS satisfied the IOSCO PRA Principles can be found here.
This report is accompanied by BDO’s findings following an independent review of ICIS processes and policies to provide Reasonable and Limited Assurance conclusions.