Search Results for: accountancy

BY KEITH NUTHALL, in the real world, and BELINDA BLESSED, in Second Life

EVERY decade or so comes a technology that is so new, comprehensive, interesting, and damn useful, that it completely changes the way that we have fun and do business.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

THE MONEY Laundering Bulletin has found effects of the European Union’s (EU) second money laundering directive’s (2MLD) extension of EU anti-money laundering regulations to a range of businesses and professions are complicated by differences in the definition of the professions between the 27 member states.…

BY MARK GODFREY, in Beijing

LISTENING to the war stories being swapped at the Thursday night corporate networking parties that regularly fill Beijing’s five star hotel bars leaves the impression that doing business in China is comparable to sticking your head into a bucket of piranhas.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THERE can be fewer larger accountancy jobs than a complete overhaul of the accounting systems of all United Nations organisations, but such a project is underway, and – some would say true to form – the UN is now splashing cash on external accounting consultants.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH, in Brussels, and KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) anti-fraud office OLAF has taken a lot of flack in recent years, accused of being slow, over-aggressive, secretive and even sloppy. But it has a tough job, made harder by the unwillingness of some EU member states to publicise their management of the EU funds they handle.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON, in London

WHEN DISASTER strikes, public generosity and government donations direct huge sums of money to help survivors and repair local economies. However, what happens next is out of the donors’ hands. They have to trust that the various aid agencies and organisations overseas are directing funds to bona fide projects and individuals.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

BRITAIN’S Department for Communities and Local Government has been warned by the European Commission that it must sort out shortcomings in its auditing of European Union regional development spending in England or risk aid payments worth millions of Euros being suspended.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Agency for Reconstruction (EAR) is trying to boost financial discipline in the public services of Kosovo, teaching budgeting management and drafting skills to civil servants. The aim is to keep budgets and books tight from the start, so there are fewer messes to clear up later by the province’s government accounting and audit teams.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE LATEST annual report from European Union (EU) anti-fraud unit OLAF has revealed how an accounts department staff member of a European Commission delegation to Africa diverted Euro 300,000 of EU money to his own bank account. The official, who had been recruited locally, "systematically falsified the signatures of duly authorised delegation staff on several cheques, payment orders and other accounting documents," noted OLAF, which has kept the country of operation under wraps.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL and DAVID HAWORTH, in Brussels

SIIM Kallas is the first European Commission to have been appointed with the explicit job of fighting fraud in the European Union (EU). Every anti-fraud specialist knows that the complex and sometimes opaque procedures and administration of the EU can present a honeypot to fraudsters, and the EU has long had difficulty in nailing the problem.…