Accounting for taste.

(From Insurance Day)

ACCOUNTANTS and auditors have been under scrutiny across the world in the wake of the high-profile collapses of Enron and WorldCom.

Commentators questioned why the auditors of those companies had failed to recognise something was wrong.

The ensuing spotlight on the role of auditors threw up a number of practices which some observers suggested opened accounting firms up to criticism.

Hence a raft of legislation and guidelines were drawn up around the world designed to prevent similar scandals occurring again, and at the same time reinvigorating public confidence in industry.

In the US, which was clearly the most …