What kind of threat to independence most likely occurs when re-evaluating previous assurance conclusions or when a former director/officer of the client is on the assurance team?

• A. Self-review threat.
• B. Self-interest threat.
• C. Advocacy threat.
• D. Familiarity threat.

Answer: (A)

When thinking about independence threats, the situation described best fits a self-review threat. Re-evaluating previous assurance conclusions means the auditor is judging their own prior work or judgments. That creates a bias risk: it’s easy to defend past conclusions you were involved in, which undermines objectivity.

The second scenario—having a former director or officer of the client on the assurance team—also ties into this idea. Their prior involvement with the client can heighten the risk that the team’s current evaluations are influenced by those past decisions, effectively merging past client influence with the review process and increasing the likelihood of a self-review dynamic.

So, the core issue is objectivity being compromised when the same team re-examines previous work or when relationships to past client personnel come into play, making self-review the most fitting threat.