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Accountants prepare for International Summits

UK and Ireland members of global accountancy association MGI are preparing to meet their counterparts from across Europe and around the world at key conferences.

Hot topics for debate will include the global economic downturn, and its effect on businesses and accountancy firms themselves, and the impact of a European directive aimed at achieving greater transparency over audits and other financial statements.

MGI area meetings start in Germany on 24-25 April, with a meeting of German-speaking members. This will be followed by the Latin American meeting in Chile on 13-15 May and the North America meeting in Washington on 14-15 May.

Next will be MGI’s European Area Meeting, which takes place from 10-12 June in Luxembourg and will bring together delegates from MGI firms in more than 20 European countries, ranging from Austria to Ukraine, and from other member firms around the world.

The conference will include addresses by MGI executive director Clive Miéville and by Hilde Blomme, director of practice regulation at the Fédération des Experts Comptables Européens (FEE), who will focus on the EU Audit Directive.

The directive is designed to increase the transparency of company annual reports and other financial statements and prevent cases like the £10 billion financial scandal at Italian dairy giant Parmalat in 2004.

The directive has potentially serious implications for MGI. Its stress on auditors remaining independent of audit clients includes making sure that accountancy network firms are also independent of the audit clients of other members of that network. MGI is an association rather than a network but is currently seeking legal advice to confirm the organisation its status.

Delegates from MGI member firms in more than 70 countries worldwide will meet for MGI’s annual general meeting, which takes place from 14-16 October in Paris.

MGI, which was founded in 1947, is an association of independent accounting and consulting firms with 266 member offices in 79 countries. MGI firms share accountancy, tax and business knowledge and expertise for the benefit of fellow members and their clients.