The Big Four
The big four are a group of international accountants who carry out the audits for the vast majority of the publicly traded corporations. The accountancy firms are KPMG (formed by the merger in 1987 of Peat Marwick and the KMG Group), Ernst & Young (formed by the merger in 1989 of Ernst & Whinney and Arthur Young), Price Waterhouse Cooper (formed by the merger in 1998 of Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand) and Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu (formed by the merger in 1989 of Touche Ross and Deloitte Haskins and Sells). In the 1980’s there used to be The Big Eight before the companies merged together. These companies can trace their routes throughout Europe and have emerged from a series of mergers. Arthur Anderson used to make up the group to the Big Five but after the Enron scandal in 2001 the company dissolved. The accountancy firms are regulated by International Accounting Standards.
Accountancy Bodies
Accountants are regulated by governing bodies to ensure that they are qualified to practice. There are different levels of qualifications that accountants can take which are very hard and include a strict exam process. In the UK a person can become a Chartered Accountant, a Chartered Certified Accountant or an International Accountant. There are five accounting bodies recognised by the Department of Trade and Industry and for an accountancy firm to audit the accounts of a business they have to be a registered auditor. In the UK the oldest body is the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Scotland (ICAS) and the largest is the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW).