Matthew Damon has been appointed as a junior auditor of AwesomewaterhouseCoopers (AwC). One of his first tasks is to review the firms audit clients to ensure that independence requirements of APES 110 (Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants) are being met. His review has revealed the following:

(1) AwC has recently been approached by Metal Mining Limited (MML) to conduct its audit. The accountant at MML, Jennifer Lawrence is the daughter of one of AwCs audit partner Brian Adams. Being aware of Brians relationship with Jennifer, AwC will not be assigning Brian to the audit team of MML.

Required:

Using the conceptual framework in APES 110 (Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants), identify potential threat(s) to independence & recommend safeguards (if any) to reduce the independence threat(s) identified. Also, provide an objective assessment of whether audit independence can be achieved.