Accountants must accept share of blame for crisis says ACCA president

Accountants must accept share of blame for crisis says ACCA president

Richard Aitken-Davies thinks accountants ‘haven’t said no enough’ to shoddy accounting practices at financial institutions

Accountants and non-execs should accept their share of the blame for the
current financial crisis in the markets, according to
ACCA president Richard
Aitken-Davies.

In an article for the Guardian, Aitken-Davies wrote that ‘perhaps we
accountants haven’t said no enough’ when confronted by short-termist accounting
and questionable risk management at some of the major financial institutions.

He also singled out independent non executive directors for criticism.

‘If directors ignored bad habits, if they accepted complacency after a
prolonged bull market then they should be held accountable. If they have
overseen failure, and allowed greed to flourish then they are accountable for
this, too,’ he wrote.

Aitken Davies called for a rethink on corporate governance as something had
gone ‘seriously wrong’ with it and for remuneration and incentivisation packages
to be redrawn. He also insisted that it was important to hold those responsible
to account in court.

Further reading:

Read Richard Aitken-Davies’s
Guardian
article

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