Leading corporate counsel have expressed concern at a new company bill going through the House of Lords designed to tighten up company accounts. The Companies (Audit, Investigations and Community Enterprise) Bill, if implemen-ted, would require directors to state in their reports that they have not withheld any relevant information from their auditors.
Steve Cowden, company secretary and general counsel at Reed Elsevier, told Legal Director: “No-one can condone deliberately misleading auditors. It is, however, a great pity that, after all the effort put into the Company Law Review by a broad cross-section of contributors, the Government is implementing it in such a piecemeal fashion. The question of auditors’ liability is closely linked to directors’ liability and these issues should be reviewed as a whole, and as a priority.”
