Three UK plcs face accounts probes
The Financial Reporting Review Panel is investigating three companies for suspected accounting abuses after it looked into the finances of the UK's 350 top companies.
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Accountants at the regulator have identified the three unnamed firms for alleged non-compliance with financial rules.
Minor non-compliance transgressions have also been discovered at five other businesses.
The FRRP has the power to order companies to correct their financial statements if it believes accounting rules have been broken.
The alleged non-compliance has been found after the regulator’s first proactive scrutiny of annual reports of 20 listed companies.
Sir Bryan Nicholson, chairman of the Financial Reporting Council, the panel’s independent parent body, said: ‘Having proactivity does not stop crooks. All it does is provide you with a stronger framework.
‘People will always be able to get through if they are crooked.’
The move by the UK regulator comes at the same time as the US authorities are getting tough, reported the Financial Times newspaper.
Regulators across the pond are planning to launch civil and criminal charges against mutual fund companies for trading abuses.