Tougher regulations and laws may help stamp out false accounting. But creative accounting will always be with us – even if recent developments in international accounting standard setting makes it more challenging. That's why the task of the non-executive director, of the fund manager, of the banker, of the supplier or of any other interested party in a company's underlying financial health is to ask the many questions that the published accounts don't answer.
Published accounts will always be like bikinis – much more interesting for what they conceal than for what they reveal – regardless of more exacting accounting standards.
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(PDF 75k). See also news stories of 5, 6, and 13 April 2005 for other IFRS-related speeches by the Commissioner.