Banks’ auditors have had to deal with the absurdity of accounts failing the ‘true & fair’ test for the very reason that they comply with a flawed standard. Auditors accused of rubber-stamping defective accounts of banks should now feel some relief. The International Accounting Standards Board appears at last to acknowledge the folly of its […]

Concepts, like Plato’s “forms”, exist in the world of ideas. Compared with their myriad manifestations, the concepts of, say, “window”, “chair” or “coin” exist in the mind, immutable and unchanging. Similarly, our structured accounting lexicon began with broad acceptance of its underlying concepts. These criteria were treated as assumptions, laying the groundwork for that other […]

Most penalties for financial wrongdoing are levied on institutions rather than the inventive executives who master-mind these grubby manoeuvres. Regulatory authorities themselves do not benefit from the fines they collect, now amounting to serious money – over £500 million in this year alone. Apart from relatively modest retentions to cover regulators’ costs, the money is […]

Legal claims against top Wall Street banks arising out of the financial crisis have, so far, settled at over $100 billion, and no doubt there will be more. Claims against audit firms for their involvement will surely follow, and it will be interesting to see how far IFRS-compliance will serve as the defence of choice.  […]

AUDITING BANKS’ TOXIC DEBTS Ever since the financial markets registered their massive tumble in 2008, when Lehman Brothers was left to drown in its swamp of toxic debts, banks’ managements, regulators, rating agencies and auditors have been muttering that banks must rebuild their balance sheets in line with successive Basel capital adequacy criteria. Their auditors, […]

UK Companies Acts since 1947 have stipulated that audited accounts of companies should give a ‘true and fair view’. After 66 years the meaning of that elusive formula continues to be hotly debated by accounting bodies, regulators, representatives of investors and pension funds, civil servants and politicians. Prior to that time the Acts used the […]

The subject of Europe polarises any otherwise rational debate. Obsessional prejudice, whether pro or con, induces deafness and drives out reason. More inflammatory even than party politics (where spin and expediency have blunted the ideals), passions over Europe (the Union, not the continent) have taken on the trappings of a belief system, susceptible to neither […]

A study of the evolution of the form and content of UK audit reports over, say, the past 50 years would make nostalgic but intriguing reading because it would at the same time reflect changing public and investor expectations of the audit function. Under the Companies Act 1948 audit reports were required, positively, to include […]

Regulation of the UK financial services industry is now entrusted to a new body with a new name and a new boss. Andrew Bailey, whose signature appears on your banknotes, takes over this month as chief executive of the Prudential Regulation Authority, successor to the FSA. Initial impressions augur well. In his first post-appointment interview […]

Regulation of the UK financial services industry is now entrusted to a new body with a new name and a new boss. Andrew Bailey, whose signature appears on your banknotes, takes over this month as chief executive of the Prudential Regulation Authority, successor to the FSA. Initial impressions augur well. In his first post-appointment interview […]