Bean Counters: The Triumph of the Accountants and How They Broke Capitalism

314 Pages·2018·3.9 MB·English

by  Richard Brooks

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Richard Brooks is an investigative journalist for Private Eye magazine. He
writes on a range of subjects, including financial crime, public services and
taxation. His work has appeared in many other outlets, including the Guardian
and on the BBC. He was awarded the Paul Foot Award for Investigative
Journalism in 2008 and 2015 and his work was highly commended in the 2016
British Journalism awards. He lives with his family in Reading.

Published in hardback and trade paperback in Great Britain in 2018 by Atlantic Books, an imprint of
Atlantic Books Ltd.
Copyright © Richard Brooks, 2018
The moral right of Richard Brooks to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Image copyrights: figures 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 10, 12, 13 © Richard Brooks; figures 4, 5 © Wikimedia Images;
figure 7 © AP Images; figure 8 © PwC; figure 11 © Pressefoto ULMER/Markus Ulme
Every effort has been made to trace or contact all copyright holders. The publishers will be pleased to make
good any omissions or rectify any mistakes brought to their attention at the earliest opportunity.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Hardback ISBN: 978 1 78649 028 5
Trade paperback ISBN: 978 1 78649 029 2
E-book ISBN: 978 1 78649 030 8
Printed in Great Britain
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For Alex, Joe and Brigitte
CONTENTS
List of Figures
Prologue
Introduction: Meet the Bean Counters
Part I From the Tigris to Wall Street: A Noble Profession’s Ignoble History
1 Merchants and Mayhem
2 Full Steam Ahead
3 Accountancy Goes Wrong
4 Trust Me, I’m a Consultant
5 Free for All
6 Crash!
Part II False Prophets: The Price We Pay for the Failure of the Bean Counters
7 Duty Free
8 Great Britain, LLP
9 Crime and Very Little Punishment
10 Far from Home
11 Unreformed and Unrepentant
Conclusion: What Can Be Done?
Appendix: The Big Four Family Trees
Acknowledgements
Bibliography
Notes and References
Index
LIST OF FIGURES
1 KPMG’s new club in Mayfair
2 The growth of the Big Four’s income
3 The changing balance between audit and non-audit income
4 Medici accountant Francesco Sassetti
5 The ‘Father of Accounting’ Luca Pacioli
6 The twentieth-century rise of consultancy
7 Lead auditor on Enron, David Duncan
8 GlaxoSmithKline’s Luxembourg tax-avoidance scheme
9 LuxLeaks whistleblower Antoine Deltour
10 PwC whistleblower Raphaël Halet
11 FIFA auditor Fredy Luthiger
12 The rise of consultancy after the financial crisis
13 Consultancy income v. productivity growth