France

Evelyne Lande and Jean-Claude Scheid

Chapter 4 in Accounting Regulation in Europe, 1999, pp 78-98 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract In France, financial reportingas we know it today emerged from a programme of standardisation during the 1940s and 1950s, from the development of securities markets in the 1960s and 1970s and, finally, from a process of legal harmonisation during the 1980s. Prior to the 1940s, public accountability had been limited to two areas. The first was the presentation of an annual financial report by directors to the annual general meeting of incorporated companies which had been required under the companies law since 1867. The second was the filingof annual accounts by companies at the commercial registry which began in 1919. Two developments then had considerable impact on the emergence of modern financial reporting: the establishment of the profession of statutory auditor in 1935 and the growth of accounting standardisation which took place in the years after 1947. Each of these milestones in the development of modern financial reportingin France resulted from legislation initiated by the government and it can thus be concluded that successive French governments have been instrumental in the process of development (see Scheid and Walton, 1992). Until the adoption into French law of the Fourth European Directive on 30 April 1983, however, there was no statutory legislation for accounting. It should be noted that French law is based on statutes rather than cases, the obligations of the individual beingstipulated in laws, in other legal texts (such as decrees promulgated by the state) and in contracts.

Keywords: Legal Text; Accounting Principle; Accounting Issue; Annual Account; Certified Public Accountant (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1999
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-51201-6_4

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9780230512016

DOI: 10.1057/9780230512016_4

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().