I found it more than a little ironic to watch today’s news and see George W. Bush signing corporate responsibility legislation. Could it be that the defender of the free market has realized that corporations, existing only to exact profit, ultimately succumb to their own greed when left to their own devices? While it is hardly surprising that fatcats at the top of the corporate food chain effectively absconded with their investor’s money and employee’s retirement nest egg, what does surprise me is how little was said by the accounting firms, or individual accountants within those firms. What ever happened to professional accountability?
Professions, by their definition, are designed to be self-regulating bodies created by an act of legislation to work in the public interest in a specific area of expertise. This legislation restricts the practice in the field of expertise to those individuals licensed by the professional body, and provides the framework for the basic operation of the professional body. For example, in British Columbia the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists is responsible for regulating the practices of engineering and geoscience, as specified in the province’s Engineers and Geoscientists Act (APEG-BC). Practice in either field is restricted under force of law to those licensed by APEG-BC. Members of the Association are also required to abide by the Code of Ethics, which define basic ethical rules by which the Association’s membership must abide. The Association is also responsible for disciplining those guilty of professional misconduct.
Professional bodies for accountants, such as the Chartered General Accountants or the American Institute of Chartered Professional Accountants, surely have similar rules of discipline. Where was that keenly honed sense of ethics and responsibility to the public interest when Enron execs were shifting money around to make the books look good? Did the little angel on their left shoulder just take that year off?
Of course, in some people’s minds it’s easy to dismiss the obligation to the public interest in matters of accounting, isn’t it? After all, it’s not like a building falls down, a plane falls out of the sky, or a nuclear power plant implodes. Nobody ever died due to an accounting error that I know of, and I’m willing to bet that the tally of spreadsheet-mishap-related fatalities is destined to stay eternally low.
We shouldn’t care about professional misconduct in accounting because nobody dies, is that it? I don’t think so.
To truly remedy this situation, the appropriate professional bodies in the United States should throw the book at those professionals responsible for perpetrating these crimes. Strip them of their professional designations, fine them the maximum amount, and make it widely known that this type of behaviour is unacceptable. While the masterminds behind the corporate shell game may be able to plead the fifth, no such right exists for professionals before their professional body’s discipline committees. If we can’t get the real crooks, then we should make like Elliot Nest and go after the accountants.