A signed, enforceable agreement must place the client's duties alongside the body's, including change, access, complaint, mark and suspension duties.
What applies today
Every certification engagement rests on an agreement that a court would enforce. It has to allocate responsibilities to both sides. On the client side the agreement must require continuing conformity with the certification requirements, including changes the body communicates. Where the certificate covers ongoing production, the product has to keep meeting the product requirements. The client must allow the evaluation and any surveillance to take place, including access to records, equipment, sites, people and subcontractors, and must allow complaints to be investigated and observers to attend where the scheme provides for them. Claims about the certificate must stay inside its scope. The client must not damage the body's reputation or make misleading statements, must stop using advertising that refers to a suspended or withdrawn certificate, must reproduce certification documents in full, must follow the mark rules, must keep and act on complaints about conformity, and must tell the body promptly about changes that could affect conformity.
Why it matters
This is the clause that turns a commercial relationship into an auditable one. Many disputes after a suspension are really arguments about what the client agreed to do. The list is long because each item is a point where a certification body otherwise has no lever. A short purchase order that says nothing about access, change or marks leaves the body dependent on goodwill at exactly the moment goodwill disappears.
The public FDIS contents lists clause 4.1.2 as Certification agreement. The FDIS requirement wording is not held, so the requirement above is the 2012 text that applies until publication.
Where this clause lands in the revision
This is a general requirement. The public contents keeps its number and title, so the 2012 wording remains the basis of an assessment until the new edition is published. A first artefact an assessor commonly asks for here is executed certification agreement with version and date. The party this touches first is The contracts owner and the certification manager, working with the client's commercial contact.
What the assessor asks for
| Category | Artefact to have ready |
|---|---|
| Signed agreement | Executed certification agreement with version and date |
| Duty map | Clause-by-clause map from 4.1.2 to the agreement text |
| Scheme annex | Current scheme rules and mark rules attached to the agreement |
| Client communication | Template letters for change, suspension and withdrawal |
One common question. pick one live client and trace the agreement to the scheme, the scope and the latest change notice. A generic agreement with no scheme annex is a common finding.
Common failures
- The agreement predates the current scheme and was never reissued
- Access to subcontractors is promised in the procedure but absent from the contract
- Suspension duties are described in the manual, not in the client's signed terms
Prepare before publication
List every live client and the agreement version in force. Any client on an old template goes into the transition plan before the assessment date.
Dates that matter
The public record gives stage 50.20 on 4 August 2026 and voting to 27 October 2026. The planning date, 15 February 2027, is an estimate from that stage and not an ISO date, and clause 4.1.2 has no separate date.
Cross-references
4.1.3 Use of licence, certificates and marks of conformity · 4.6 Publicly available information · 7.2 Application · 7.10 Changes affecting certification · 7.11 Termination, reduction, suspension or withdrawal
Source
Source for 4.1.2: ISO/IEC 17065:2012, Clause 4.1.2, with the ISO/IEC FDIS 17065 public record. Our statement, not the instrument verbatim; the FDIS wording is not held.
Not legal advice; does not certify. A reading of the requirement and the evidence an assessor commonly samples, not a substitute for the standard or your accreditation body's rules.