187.10.5. The board of directors of the Ordre professionnel des comptables généraux accrédités du Québec and the board of directors of the Ordre professionnel des comptables en management accrédités du Québec may enter into an agreement with the following bodies exercising complementary functions with respect to the protection of the public: the Autorité des marchés financiers and the Canadian Public Accountability Board incorporated under the Canada Business Corporations Act (Revised Statutes of Canada, 1970, chapter C-32). The term of the agreement may not exceed five years.
The agreement may, to the extent required for its implementation, derogate from the Acts and regulations governing the Ordre professionnel des comptables généraux accrédités du Québec or the Ordre professionnel des comptables en management accrédités du Québec that pertain to the confidentiality of the information it holds. The agreement must define the nature and scope of the information the professional order and the body may exchange concerning inspection, discipline or any inquiry conducted by the body or the professional order regarding a professional or a professional partnership or company within which members of the professional order practise, specify the purpose of the exchange of information and the conditions of confidentiality to be observed, including those pertaining to professional secrecy, and determine how information so obtained may be used.
The information that may be communicated under the agreement must be necessary for the exercise of the functions of the party receiving it.
The information communicated under the agreement by the Ordre professionnel des comptables généraux accrédités du Québec or the Ordre professionnel des comptables en management accrédités du Québec must be treated by the body receiving it with as much confidentiality as if it had been obtained or was held by the professional order in the exercise of the powers granted by this Code. That obligation does not, however, restrict the powers granted by an Act of Québec to the Autorité des marchés financiers as regards the communication of information.
The agreement is published in the Gazette officielle du Québec. On the expiry of at least 45 days after the publication, it is submitted to the Government for approval, with or without amendments. The agreement comes into force after approval, on the date it is published again in the Gazette officielle du Québec or on any later date stated in the agreement.
The Ordre professionnel des comptables généraux accrédités du Québec and the Ordre professionnel des comptables en management accrédités du Québec shall report on the implementation of the agreements entered into in the report they must produce under section 104.
2008, c. 7, s. 53; 2008, c. 11, s. 1; 2009, c. 35, s. 76.