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ACCA and FEE co-host event on 1 June

25 May 2007

The nature of regulation and how it affects accountants and finance professionals will be examined at an event in London held by ACCA and FEE, the European accountancy profession's representative body.

The event, on Friday 1 June, will have global input with speakers from the World Bank's Latin American region, and IFAC, the accountancy profession's world representative body. Sir John Bourn, chairman of the UK's city regulator, the Professional Oversight Board, will also be speaking.

Allen Blewitt, chief executive, ACCA, said: 'We are delighted to host such a heavyweight event, and particularly on such an important topic. Regulation consistently tops the list of issues which concern our members around the world, and many feel that the post-Enron rush for additional regulation is still being applied in too heavy-handed a manner in many parts of the world.'

'Accountants recognise that regulation is necessary to provide support for businesses and shareholders, but many feel that too much time is spent on onerous compliance of little value to anyone. They are not convinced that regulators have achieved the appropriate balance, and they look to their professional bodies, such as ACCA, to argue the case for proportionate and value-added regulation.'

Jacques Potdevin, president, FEE, said: 'FEE supports the successful transposition of the Statutory Audit Directive in all member states that will contribute greatly to enhancing the effectiveness and harmonisation of audit quality assurance. We favour the implementation of public oversight bodies representing all stakeholders in the EU. However, we believe that oversight bodies should possess adequate competences and knowledge in auditing and that professional judgment should continue to be the cornerstone of auditing. This is essential to foster high quality in statutory audits and protect the public interest.'

Olivier Boutellis-Taft, chief executive, FEE added: 'What matters with regulation is quality, not quantity. Many commentators have said that Europe has established a better regulatory balance than the US.  However practitioners and investors need stability and time to digest change. This event represents an ideal opportunity to examine such issues and the contribution professional accountants can make to better regulation.'

The forum will consist of keynote speeches, break-out groups and a roundtable discussion led by David Devlin, past president, FEE. It will be preceded by the FEE Leaders Dinner on Thursday 31 May, addressed by Fermin del Valle, president of IFAC and a partner at Deloitte in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

For more information please contact:
Ian Welch, ACCA Head of Corporate Communications
 + 44 (0) 20 7059 5729 / 07739 862928
Michael Sotiriou, FEE Communications Manager
 + 32 (0) 2 285 4072