By Ian Fraser Published: Sunday Herald Date: July 17th, 2011 There aren’t many signs of national bankruptcy in Siena. There is the odd boarded-up shop and the occasional “everything under 99c” store but the cafes are full and la dolce vita goes on. So it came as a shock to find that Italy is being lined […]
By Ian Fraser Published: QFINANCE Date: July 11th, 2011 Accountancy has changed beyond recognition since the 1970s. At that time the accountancy professor Roy Sidebotham wrote: “There seems to be no limit to the optimism of businessmen… which the growing complexity of the market opens up. The first line of defence of investors and creditors is the […]
June 26th, 2011 My work on the flawed nature of “mark-to-market” accounting and IFRS accounting standards has been included as supporting evidence in attempts by Steve Baker, the Conservative MP for Wycombe, to introduce to the UK parliament a private members bill that would transform how banks report their financial performance. Baker, a former Lehman […]
By Ian Fraser Published: Sunday Herald Date: April 3rd, 2011 A LEADING Highland firm of chartered accountants and tax advisers is facing bankruptcy following a lengthy dispute with the state-owned lender Royal Bank of Scotland. Graeme Fraser, who founded 16-strong Graeme M Fraser & Co in the early 1980s, will appear as a ‘party litigant’ […]
March 30th, 2011 Here is Lord MacGregor, a former Conservative chief secretary of the Treasury, unveiling the hard-hitting and long-awaited conclusions of the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee’s report into audit profession. This is an inquiry I’ve been following with great interest and which I’ve written on Qfinance (Scrap mark-to-market accounting or face further […]
By Ian Fraser Published: Sunday Herald Date: February 20th, 2011 A CORPORATE whistleblower’s eight-year battle over his claims that Scottish Widows policyholders were deprived of £1.5 billion during the Lloyds takeover is to be the subject of an English high court hearing. Graham Senior-Milne, a former internal auditor at Lloyds TSB and Scottish Widows, is […]
January 29th, 2011 The many inquiries into the financial crisis have turned over plenty of stones but have failed to find any smoking guns. But the House of Lords economic affairs committee’s inquiry “Auditors: market concentration and their role” is making strides in identifying and maybe rooting out the accounting shenanigans that lay at the […]
January 18th, 2011 The interrogation of Barclays’ newly-installed chief executive Bob Diamond by the Treasury committee of the House of Commons last Tuesday was an unsatisfactory affair. But it was followed by a much more productive parliamentary session in the UK — a meeting of the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee on the afternoon […]
December 28th, 2010 I’ve long suspected that, at least where banking and financial sector clients are concerned, the ‘Big Four’ audit firms now see their role as being to pull the wool over investors’ eyes. The theory is about to be tested in the US courts, where Ernst & Young stands accused of fraud over […]
December 21st, 2010 Today’s biggest financial news story was that the New York attorney-general is suing the accountancy firm Ernst & Young for fraud following its alleged role in the cooking the Lehman Brothers books in the years prior to the investment bank’s September 2008 demise. I’d like to focus here on the way in […]