---
title: "Expert Reviewer - Transfer pricing elements of Operational Separation"
ocid: "ocds-b5fd17-d2b729a3-e664-489e-b552-08ffe9af3241"
canonical_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/?ocid=ocds-b5fd17-d2b729a3-e664-489e-b552-08ffe9af3241"
markdown_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-b5fd17-d2b729a3-e664-489e-b552-08ffe9af3241.md"
json_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-b5fd17-d2b729a3-e664-489e-b552-08ffe9af3241.json"
source: "Contracts Finder"
current_stage: "Award"
buyer: "THE FINANCIAL REPORTING COUNCIL LIMITED"
published: "2022-09-20"
---

# Expert Reviewer - Transfer pricing elements of Operational Separation

Buyer: THE FINANCIAL REPORTING COUNCIL LIMITED  
Current stage: Award  
OCID: ocds-b5fd17-d2b729a3-e664-489e-b552-08ffe9af3241

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## Summary

The Financial Reporting Council Limited has awarded a contract for the project titled "Expert Reviewer - Transfer pricing elements of Operational Separation". The project aims to engage an Expert Reviewer to review the largest audit firms' transfer pricing methodologies and policies for operational separation. This procurement process is in the Award stage, with a total contract value of £48,500 GBP. The contract period is from 22nd September 2022 to 22nd September 2023. The project falls under the Financial consultancy, financial transaction processing and clearing-house services category and is located at 8th Floor, 125 London Wall, London, EC2Y 5AS. The contracting authority is THE FINANCIAL REPORTING COUNCIL LIMITED.

This tender presents an opportunity for businesses in financial consultancy, auditing, and business-related services to participate and potentially secure contracts. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and voluntary, community, and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations are particularly encouraged to engage. Interested businesses should closely review the tender documents, observe the specified timelines, and register their interest with the Head of Procurement at procurement@frc.org.uk. The procurement process follows an open procedure below threshold, providing a fair chance for various types of businesses to compete for this contract opportunity.

## Notice

THIS IS A CONTRACT AWARD NOTICE The purpose of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) is to serve the public interest by setting high standards of corporate governance, reporting and audit and by holding to account those responsible for delivering them. In February 2021, the FRC published the revised Operational Separation Objectives, Outcomes and Principles (the 'Principles'). Through Operational Separation, we intend to: i) Improve audit quality by ensuring that people in the audit practice are focused above all on delivery of high-quality audits in the public interest. ii) Improve audit market resilience by ensuring that no material, structural cross-subsidy persists between the audit practice and the rest of the firm. The revised principles for operational separation of the audit practices have voluntarily been adopted by the largest four audit firms in the UK. The objective of operational separation is to ensure that audit practices are focused above all on delivery of high-quality audits in the public interest, and to improve audit market resilience by ensuring that there is no subsidy between the audit practice and the other service lines. Through the principles the FRC limits the scope of service that can be delivered by firms' audit practices mainly to undertaking statutory audits and related work. However, to deliver on a statutory audit especially for large and complex audited entities, the audit practice will need expertise which may not necessarily be located within the audit practice but may have to be borrowed from the other service lines in the firm for example: actuaries, valuers, IT specialists etc. In accordance with the Principles, we would expect the firms to charge these expert resources at arms' length prices (similarly if auditors work on engagements/ projects in other service lines then they would also need to be charged at an arm's length price). This will ensure that there is no subsidy between the audit practice and the other parts of the firm, and thus that audits are priced to reflect the economic reality. The aim of this project was to engage an Expert Reviewer on transfer pricing, who will review the four largest audit firm's transfer pricing methodologies and policies for operational separation. The transfer pricing expert should undertake a design effectiveness review of the transfer pricing methodology and policies used by the four largest audit firms in implementing the Operational Separation Principle on arm's length pricing. The report should detail: 1. For each firm, the appropriateness of and the risks and issues arising from the firms' methodologies and policies for transfer pricing. 2. A comparison between the firms' arm's length pricing methodologies and policies to form a view as to whether, overall, there is a level playing field, given the firms' differences in approach. 3. An opinion on whether there is any potential for improvement, and related recommendations. ***AWARD NOTICE*** Additional information: THIS IS A CONTRACT AWARD NOTICE. THIS TENDER HAS BEEN COMPLETED.

## Key Details

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Publication source | Contracts Finder |
| Latest notice | https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/3ec0222c-97a3-4a8d-8367-beffad0edc66 |
| Notice type | Award Notice |
| Procurement type | Standard |
| Procurement category | Services |
| Procurement method | Open |
| Procurement method details | Open procedure (below threshold) |
| Tender suitability | SME, VCSE |
| Awardee scale | Large |
| All stages | Tender, Award |

## Dates

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Publication date | 20 Sep 2022 |
| Submission deadline | 4 Aug 2022 |
| Future notice date | Not specified |
| Award date | 19 Sep 2022 |
| Contract period | 21 Sep 2022 - 22 Sep 2023 |
| Recurrence | Not specified |

## Values

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Tender value | £49,000 |
| Lots value | Not specified |
| Awards value | £48,500 |
| Contracts value | Not specified |

## Status

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Tender status | Complete |
| Lots status | Not specified |
| Awards status | Active |
| Contracts status | Not specified |

## Buyer

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Main buyer | THE FINANCIAL REPORTING COUNCIL LIMITED |
| Locality | LONDON |
| Post town | Central London |
| Postcode | EC2Y 5AS |
| Country | England |
| ITL 1 | TLI London |
| ITL 2 | TLI3 Inner London - West |
| ITL 3 | TLI35 Westminster and City of London |
| Local authority | City of London |
| Electoral ward | Bassishaw |
| Westminster constituency | Cities of London and Westminster |
| Delivery location | Not specified |

## Supplier

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Number of suppliers | 1 |
| Supplier names | FTI CONSULTING |

## CPV Codes

### Divisions

- 66 - Financial and insurance services
- 79 - Business services: law, marketing, consulting, recruitment, printing and security

### Codes

- 66170000 - Financial consultancy, financial transaction processing and clearing-house services
- 79200000 - Accounting, auditing and fiscal services
- 79900000 - Miscellaneous business and business-related services

## Release History

- 20 Sep 2022 at 16:21 - Award - Award Notice - https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/3ec0222c-97a3-4a8d-8367-beffad0edc66
- 12 Jul 2022 at 09:28 - Tender - Tender Notice - https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/fb01efad-6cf2-49ce-bed0-a42ff8f87a13

## Documents

- https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/3ec0222c-97a3-4a8d-8367-beffad0edc66
  20th September 2022 - Awarded contract notice on Contracts Finder
- https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/fb01efad-6cf2-49ce-bed0-a42ff8f87a13
  12th July 2022 - Opportunity notice on Contracts Finder
- https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/Attachment/c60ad9a0-a271-448f-8696-b1d4e18f0ae1
- https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/Attachment/b2705430-6071-4a78-8f99-4d3b78f00787

## Notice URLs

- http://www.frc.org.uk

## Provenance

This Markdown file is an alternate public rendering of the D3 Tenders contract record. The canonical page is https://d3tenders.com/contract/?ocid=ocds-b5fd17-d2b729a3-e664-489e-b552-08ffe9af3241. The underlying structured data is available as OCDS JSON at https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-b5fd17-d2b729a3-e664-489e-b552-08ffe9af3241.json.