A greater move towards international accounting standards
is certain to result from the Enron furore. But already there are
signs of regulatory one-upmanship. And bankers worry that the
debate on the rights and wrongs of the Enron affair is quickly
giving way to a turf battles and point-scoring between regulators
and accounting bodies.
Best placed to benefit from a widespread move to internationally
accepted principles would be the London-headquartered International
Accounting Standards Board (IASB).
The IASB's chairman, Sir David Tweedie, was in Washington in
mid-February - along with former Federal Reserve chairman Paul
Volcker, who is chairman of the IASB's board of trustees - to
testify before the Senate committee on banking, housing and urban
affairs.
Though taking care to point out that many international financial
reporting standards are similar to US GAAP, Tweedie pointed out
that the environment in which standards are set in the US is
profoundly different, mainly...
