Search Results for: accountancy

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Accountants Federation (FEE) is assessing moves at the European Union (EU) to pass legislation that reflects some of the changes made in the USA under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The FEE is preparing a position paper on the EU’s 8th company law directive, which is primarily concerned with auditing issues, but, said a spokesman, is “not exactly equivalent to section 404 of the SO Act because it doesn’t require an audited statement regarding the internal control of the company”.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE BRUSSELS whistle-blower Marta Andreasen, who was sacked late last year as chief accountant of the European Commission two years after exposing serious weaknesses in its accounting system, has been rebuffed by MEPs in her attempts to find a job with the European Parliament (EP).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

INTERNATIONAL accountancy firms will be closely monitoring next week’s World Trade Organisation (WTO) summit in Hong Kong for signs that the WTO’s long-running Doha Development Round talks are about to crack open national accounting and auditing markets. Progress in refreshing the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) has been sluggish since talks began in 2000, one year ahead of the general round, with few trade-offs being offered in bilateral exchanges.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission has released formal requests to World Trade Organisation (WTO) member countries to liberalise their services sectors, including accountancy, under the Doha Development Round. Financial services are explicitly mentioned in these bilateral demands, addressed directly to all 103 WTO member governments.…

Keith Nuthall
THE LATEST government debt figures from European Union (EU) statistical agency Eurostat shows that Italy and Greece have a long way to go before breathing easy over their governments’ indebtedness. Under the Growth and Stability Pact underpinning the value of the Euro, any country using the currency with debt exceeding 60% of GDP must ensure they are steadily moving towards the black.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
MARTA Andreasen, the European Commission’s former chief accountant who was sacked in November, has been offered a glimmer of hope for re-instatement in her old job by the new Barroso Commission, which has just taken office in Brussels.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
FEW whistle-blowers have hit the headlines as much as accountant Marta Andreasen who was suspended by the European Commission in 2002 after disclosing serious weaknesses in its bookkeeping system and has now just been formally sacked.

Of all those who have taken the brave and often lonely path of public disclosure, Ms Andreasen, as the Commission’s former chief accounting officer, is by far the most senior.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
CHRIS Dickson, the Executive counsel of the Accountant’s Joint Disciplinary Scheme, spoke powerfully in defence of the European Commission’s sacked chief accountant Marta Andreasen at her disciplinary hearing in Brussels last month, Accountancy Age can reveal.

He represented her pro bono publico, appealing for her reinstatement in front of the entire outgoing Commission, a call that fell on deaf ears, with her former employers later ordering her dismissal.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
MARTA ANDREASEN, former chief accountant of the European Commission, expects to hear in a matter of days whether or not she is to be dismissed for breaching staff regulations, she said today (Thurs 30-9). Ms Andreasen has been suspended for over two years following her public disclosures of serious weaknesses in the Commission’s accounting procedures and an internal Commission disciplinary board has recommended her dismissal.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE NEW president of the European Commission, the former Portuguese prime minister Jose Manuel Barroso, has made clear that for the next five years at least there will be a reform-minded team at work in Brussels driven by a powerful desire to eliminate accounting fraud, inefficiency and the protection of special interests.…