This week saw Accountancy Age release its Top 50 table for 2003 revealing the profession facing its hardest time in a decade; there was also an acquittal in the Wickes trial and more bad news for football clubs in the UK.
saw the heated debate over directors’ remuneration resurface again in parliament, with the government resisting mounting pressure to implement additional powers to ensure linkage between directors’ remuneration and performance.
Jumping on the limited liability bandwagon, mid-tier firm BDO Stoy Hayward voted to adopt LLP status possibly by the end of the year.
Tuesday, it was announced that a former audit partner at Deloitte & Touche will face complaints from the profession’s disciplinary body in relation to him acquiring a luxury vehicle from a company he was auditing at the time.
In other news, insolvency practitioners defended administrators at Ernst & Young after the high costs of the Railtrack administration prompted harsh criticism when they were revealed this week.
On Wednesday, and some news from the US, as an independent organisation that looks after the interests of PeopleSoft’s 5,100 worldwide customers opposed Oracle’s hostile $6.3bn takeover bid.
Accountancy Age also reported that struggling companies in the UK technology industry could cause ‘turmoil’ in the insolvency sector by applying for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Thursday, Accountancy Age released its 6th annual Top 50 survey – our headline story was that fewer than one in 10 partners at the UK’s biggest accountancy firms are female, according to the first-ever analysis of the country’s most senior accountants’ gender.
And in a blow to the efforts of the Serious Fraud Office. a former director of DIY store Wickes was cleared of misleading the company auditors in 1995, in relation to an £18.3m overstatement of company profits at the time.
Friday, saw nearly a third of football experts say they expect a premier league club to fall into administration in the next 12 months – as the future looked bleak for clubs in the UK.