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Auditing versus Consultancy: A critique of the EU law reforms on the new form of auditing
Abstract and Figures
This paper argues that the new form of auditing introduced by the recent EU regulations is not problematic but
creates issues that have to be taken into account by all interested parties. First, the expectations between the users of the financial reports and auditors are wider. Second, auditors’ independence is damaged due to the long years of auditor tenure and dependence of non-audit fees generated from consultancy services that not related to audit.The recent law reforms issued by the European Commission has brought some important provisions in terms of filling the expectations gap, reinforcing auditor independence and reducing the familiarity threat. EU’s relatively strict rules on provision of non-audit services and audit firm rotation are expected to have an important impact in the audit market. A critical analysis of the new EU law is submitted with some policy recommendations.
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Competitive markets are now established in most successful economies but the question of what competition is and what it means for policy in developing countries is often overlooked. This book provides a refreshing and critical examination of the issues relating to market competition and competition policy. The book discusses competition from different theoretical perspectives and examines the implications these viewpoints have for policy. The contributors assess competitiveness in domestic markets and the impact of foreign competition. They also review the experiences of a range of countries in developing competition policy and examine both the strengths and weaknesses of these policies.
Written in a non-technical manner, Competitive Advantage and Competition Policy in Developing Countries is addressed to policymakers, as well as academics, concerned with regulation and competition. It will also be of interest to regulators in dedicated agencies such as utility regulators, competition agencies and those dealing with regulatory impact assessment.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to assess the influences on the due process of standard-setting with reference to the legitimacy of the financial reporting “soft law” that is International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a literature review to analyse the governance structures, due process steps, staffing and funding of IFRS standard-setting activities. The study also uses descriptive statistics to analyse constituent participation during the development of two IFRS standards. The mean, median and standard deviation are used as measures of location and dispersion when analysing constituent participation.
Findings
IFRS governance structures are dominated by G20 countries. The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) depends on international accounting firms, the European Commission and the G8 countries for its financial viability. Well-resourced national standard-setters, major international companies, international accounting firms and educational institutions are able to second their staff to the IASB thereby providing them with direct lobbying opportunities. The IFRS due process procedures provide opportunities for participation but actual participation is dominated by constituents from Europe with African and South American constituents the least active.
Practical Implications
IFRS are required or permitted in over 100 countries. The IASB, with no legal or formal mandate, is performing a task normally reserved for national standard-setters. The legitimacy of IFRS is questionable if the standard-setting due process is perceived as invalid.
Originality/value
The global financial crisis exposed weaknesses in the IFRS due process when the IASB amended IAS 39 without following the due process. African and South American standard-setters should take note that their lack of participation in IFRS standard-setting, coupled with the influence of powerful stakeholders on IFRS standard-setting, could result in standards not relevant for their regions.
This book addresses two related strands of literature - antitrust/competition law and economics and law and development. Whereas most competition law and economics has focused on developments in the United States and Europe, increasingly competition law, economics, and policy have taken a more important role in developing countries. This book focuses on the key variables involved in an increasingly global competition policy system.
"Hylton's Antitrust Law and Economics brings together many of the best authors writing in antitrust today. Their essays range widely, covering proof of agreement under the Sherman Act, group boycotts, monopolization and essential facilities, tying and other vertical restraints, and merger policy. The writing is clear, accessible but still technically sophisticated and comprehensive. This book represents the best in contemporary antitrust scholarship, by authors who understand and are able to communicate the centrality of economic analysis to antitrust. No antitrust lawyer, serious antitrust student, or antitrust economist should be without this book". © The Editor and Contributors Severally 2010. All rights reserved.
: Both in US antitrust and EU competition policy a development to a broader appli-cation of rule of reason instead of per se rules can be observed. In the European discussion the attempt to base competition policy on a "more economic approach" is mainly viewed as im-proving the economic analysis in the assessment of specific cases. In this paper it is shown from a general law and economics perspective that the application of rules instead of focus-sing on case-by-case analyses can have many advantages (less regulation costs, rent seeking and knowledge problems), although an additional differentiation of rules through a deeper assessment can also have advantages in regard to the reduction of decision errors of type I and II. After introducing the notion of a continuum of more or less differentiated rules, we show - based upon law and economics literature upon the optimal complexity of rules - in a simple model that a competition rule is optimally differentiated, if the marginal reduction of the sum of error costs (as the marginal benefit of differentiation) equals the marginal costs of differen-tiation. This model also allows for a more detailed analysis of the most important determi-nants of the optimal degree of rule-differentia¬tion. From this law and economics perspective, competition policy should consist mainly of (more or less differentiated) rules and should only rarely rely on case-by-case analysis. Therefore the main task of a "more economic ap-proach" is to use economics for the formulation of appropriate competition rules.
In December 2005 the European Commission has published a Green Paper on “damages actions for breach of the EC-antitrust rules”1 and a more detailed Commission Staff Working Paper as an annexe to it.2 These documents are meant to open a public consultation on various issues relating to the so-called private enforcement of Articles 81 and 82 EC. In a rather unsystematic manner they list some major issues relating to private actions for compensation of losses resulting from a violation of European competition law. These issues are the plaintiff’s access to evidence held by the defendant, the basis of liability, i.e. the fault requirement, the calculation of damages and the so-called passing-on defence which the defendant may raise if the plaintiff has succeeded to pass the higher input costs caused by a price-fixing cartel of his suppliers on to the downstream market; the need for special procedures, in particular for collective actions meant to defend consumer interests; the costs of such actions, the coordination of public and private enforcement; jurisdiction and choice of law; limitation periods, and the requirement of causation.
The dominance of English as a lingua franca in international business exchanges is so commonly accepted that there has been no investigation into the use of English as an external financial reporting language in non-English speaking countries. In this study we analyze the factors associated with the publication of an English-language annual report in non-English-speaking countries. Using a sample of 3,994 firms from 27 countries in 2003, we find that about 50% of the sample firms issue annual reports in English. Our findings suggest that the decision to publish an English annual report is related to the internationalization process (via foreign sales), language barriers (via language distance and language importance), governance (via ownership structure) and financial concerns (via the need for external financing, capital market size and cross-listing).
In spite of the evidence of strong influence on the incorporation of policy provisions from the U.S. antitrust into the recent competition policy reforms in the European Union (EU), few considerable attempts have been made to analyze the influence of U.S. antitrust on EU competition policy in anticartel enforcement policies, antimonopoly regulation, and the regulation of mergers and acquisitions. The purpose of this article is to fill the gap by attempting to link EU competition policy with U.S. antitrust, provide a critical overview of the most important elements of European competition policy reforms, carry out a comparative analysis between EU and U.S. competition policies, detect convergence or divergence, and account for the degree of convergence and for the relevant mechanisms triggering convergence. The main focus is on the analysis of anticartel enforcement policy, antimonopoly policy, and merger control.