Search Results for: accountancy

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA

WITH the Satyam scandal seriously affecting his big four firm’s global goodwill, on Thursday PricewaterhouseCooper’s international CEO Samuel DiPiazza rushed to New Delhi to meet India’s corporate affairs minister Prem Chand Gupta.

The meeting is seen by accounting industry experts as an effort to salvage PWC’s businesses in the country and explain the firm’s position in the billion-dollar fraud in which two of its auditing partners are behind bars.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL, GAVIN BLAIR, and MARK GODFREY

BACK in November 2008, long before the accession of Barack Obama to the US presidency, world leaders gathered together under the G20 banner to forge a common response to the ongoing financial crisis.…

BY SARAH BROWN

A FORMER chairman of America’s federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has called on the incoming Obama administration in the USA to start working on accounting reforms as soon as the new president takes office on January 20.

Speaking to Accountancy Age a day after the decisive election of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States, William M Isaac said: "I think generally that our accounting rules, as well as the way in which we set them, ought to be a very high priority for the Obama administration."…

BY ALAN OSBORN

A MAJOR strengthening of Canada’s regulations and programmes fighting money laundering and terrorist financing has taken place in 2008 and will continue into 2009, going a long way towards erasing the worryingly negative impression left by last year’s report by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).…

By RUSSELL BERMAN

THE ROUNDTABLE convened in Washington DC by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to examine American accounting practices has heard little support for a major overhaul of fair value accounting rules during its second meeting. Instead, financial industry professionals urged regulators to focus on smaller changes to improve mark-to-market reporting.…

BY RUSSELL BERMAN

AS policymakers in Washington DC and in capitals worldwide contemplate changes in accounting standards to stem the financial meltdown, one of the men leading the charge against the mark-to-market requirement is Wayne Abernathy.

He is the executive vice president for financial and regulatory affairs at the American Bankers Association (ABA), an influential trade group that for years has railed against so-called fair value accounting.…

BY JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN

THE VICTORY of the next USA president, Barack Obama and the expansion of his Democratic Party’s control over Congress are likely to dampen calls to end the use of fair value accounting in America.

With Democrats now firmly in charge of the country’s economic agenda, supporters of fair value accounting can probably breathe a sigh of relief this side of the Atlantic.…

By Alan Osborn

The world is not over-full of specialist academics at universities and colleges teaching anti-money laundering (AML) methods – but these important experts are out there if you look for them. Their low profile is partly because the subject is often subsumed into financial crime generally and partly because genuine AML skills can command a useful premium to banks and other major financial institutions better able to support lavish salaries and back-up systems.…

BY SARAH BROWN

THOMAS Jones, the British vice chairman of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) has told Accountancy Age that his organisation would be working closely with the United States’ Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) to work toward a cohesive response to concerns about fair value rules.…

BY JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN

EMPLOYEES of the big four accountancy firms are almost twice as likely to donate money to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign than to John McCain’s. A search of campaign contribution database at OpenSecrets.org shows nearly 640 employees at the big four have contributed to Senator Obama’s campaign, while only 326 employees have donated to Senator McCain.…