Compas Poll / Survey

CEOs and other business leaders are divided about whether the indictment of Andersen was a desirable action but they are united on many other potential responses to the challenge of misleading reports, according to responses from this week’s National Post/COMPAS survey sponsored by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and CIBC Small Business.

Aware that they themselves tend not to read the accounting statements of the public firms in which they invest and believing that almost a third of such firms use Special Purpose Entities to create misleading balance sheets, respondents believe that (a) securities regulators should have stronger policing powers, (b) laws should be changed to facilitate shareholder class actions against management, (c) company internal audit committees should be strengthened, and (d) directors should be paid in professional fees and not stock or stock options.