Canadian Public Accountability Board censures EY Canada over answer sharing on professional development courses

TORONTO, Aug. 9, 2026 – 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 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’s compliance. 

In reaching the settlement agreement, CPAB considered the firm’s “continuous cooperation” and the “extensive efforts it has taken throughout this comprehensive Investigation,” 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 “cultural assessment performed by EY-Canada’s Chief Ethics Officer.” 

Big Four exam cheating widespread in multiple jurisdictions

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, 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. 

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. 

This past week’s 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 “now examine E&Y’s Canadian operations to find out whether cheating occurred here.” 

How the exam cheating occurred at EY Canada

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). 

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. 

EY Learning Courses can be considered part of a chartered professional accountant’s mandatory continuing professional development. A quarter of EY Canada’s courses are developed internally while the rest are created by EY Global or EY US. All EY Learning Course assessments are administered through “SuccessFactors,” EY Canada’s continuing education platform. Answer-sharing was conducted via email and Microsoft Teams. 

EY Canada introduced a number of warnings and attestations over the years but incidents of answer sharing continued. Similarly to incidents at PwC Canada, “the participants in answer sharing spanned all levels of professionals at EY Canada, including two partners.” At PwC Canada, a “consistent mindset” existed in which answer-sharing was “both widely-known and appropriate,” and part of a “collaborative culture.” Similarly, at Ey Canada, answer-sharing was “common,” not a “big deal,” and would take place “out in the open, with professionals collaborating in classrooms to complete EY Learning Course assessments.” 

The Canadian enforcement order also makes clear that it was Ernst & Young LLP in the United States that, in 2019, “identified an instance where an answer key to an EY Learning Course assessment was circulated amongst EY-Canada professionals.” 

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. 

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.