As the newly-elected president of the 600-strong Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bermuda, Senator Terry Lister said he will continue discussions with Government over the issue of limiting professional liability for firms in Bermuda.

"In recent years, a number of legal, insurance and business developments have converged to create a unique unfair liability exposure to accountants who operate with unlimited personal liability,'' he said in a press release.

"Members of the profession are liaising with Government in an attempt to find a way to limit professional liability.

"All avenues are being explored including the recent limited liability partnership legislation that was passed in Ontario as well as limited liability corporations in use in the US and other jurisdictions.'' The institute is affiliated with the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants. Of its 600 members locally, about 150 are Bermudians. Sen.

Lister, who represents the opposition Progressive Labour Party in the upper house, replaces George Holmes of PricewaterhouseCoopers.

He said the profession over the years has expanded its services to include actuarial, valuation, liquidation, forensic, and investigative accounting and consulting on management and information technology.

The expansion meant accountants often link up with other professionals such as lawyers and actuaries to build multi-disciplinary practices. He called for guidelines to ensure ethical standards were maintained as the profession evolved.

"While these changes are necessary and commendable as it demonstrates the ability of chartered accountants to adapt to market conditions and to remain competitive, it also places a challenge on the profession to establish a self-regulatory environment that embraces the multi-disciplinary practices,'' he said.

"We must establish guidelines to ensure that chartered accountants control such public practice firms, so that the ethical standards of the profession which are implied to the public are upheld across the board.'' Accountants should also be raising awareness among the businesses they work with about the year 2000 computer problem.

"The failure of any microprocessor whose logic relies on dates can be affected including such things as network servers, modems, telephone systems, in-house code in databases and spreadsheets, fax machines, security systems, elevators and timekeeping systems,'' he said.

Sen. Terry Lister