CORPORATISM AND UNAVOIDABLE IMPERATIVES: RECOMMENDATIONS ON ACCOUNTING PRINCIPLES AND THE ICAEW MEMORANDUM TO THE COHEN COMMITTEE

This paper re-examines the conclusion reached by Bircher [1991], and other researchers, that the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW), through the content of the series of Recommendations on Accounting Principles (RoAPs) that it developed and then incorporated into its memorandum submitted to the Cohen Committee on Company Law Amendment, molded the radical accounting provisions contained in the Companies Act, 1948 (CA48) "in the form of its own programme" [Bircher, 1991, p. 293]. It is argued that (1) the Board of Trade (BoT), through the formation of the Cohen Committee, prompted the qualitative change in the content of the second five RoAPs, which were drafted to accord with the content of its submission to the Cohen Committee, and (2) before the ICAEW memorandum was submitted to the Cohen Committee in February 1944, a corporatist structure is discernable in the relationship between the BoT and the ICAEW causing the leaders of the ICAEW to align its interests with the BoT's priorities for the amendment of company law.