Still in Gothenburg at the Nordic CFO summit, I chaired a session this morning with International Accounting Standards Board chairman Jan Engstrom.

He predicted the SEC would begin accepting IFRS accounts in the next three years. But his comments on the liklihood of the US ditching US GAAP in favour of the new standards were more enlightening.

'The day a US soldier is serving under a non-US general is the day they will accept IFRS,' he said. 'It won't happen.'

Notwithstanding that, the IFRS march continues with Engstrom telling us to expect the first stab at an SME standard as early as September.

'I expect it to be much criticised,' he admitted. But, he added, if it can be successfully refined over the next decade, the IASB will be in a strong position to frame a case for true global covergence.

I noticed an article in this morning's Financial Times bylined Martin Sorrell and Michael Rake. I know Sorrell, of course, but had little idea who Michael Rake was. The credit at the end describes him as international chairman of KPMG. Oh, that Michael Rake.

For Michael is better known as Mike at Accountancy Age. And we claim no special favours in dubbing him thus. As far as we were aware, everyone knows him as Mike.

A little research reveals that not to be the case. In the UK it's Mike, in the US Michael or so it seems from the KPMG site. When he is chairing Business in the Community he is Michael and retains the moniker when he is addressing the World Economic Forum. When Rake is serving on the advisory council of Business for New Europe the picture is more blurred: Mike on the website but Michael in print, as today's FT article demonstrates.

Presumably - and this is a presumption on several levels - it will be Sir Michael rather than Sir Mike one day.

I'm in Gothenburg this week (hence all the posts on a bank holiday Monday; it's business as usual in Sweden) chairing the Nordic CFO summit.

So far Sarbox, IFRS and the Enron agenda have dominated proceedings. So life in Scandinavia and its surrounds is little different to the rest of Europe, nor indeed the world. I'll let you know if that changes.

One interesting chat over lunch revealed that the CFO of the Danish operation of one well-known multinational is currently running 17,000 internal controls. I don't know what that would be across the global business but it might get towards one company's 250,000, which KPMG corproate governance director Tim Copnell told our Insider Business Club webcast about a couple of weeks ago. That' just madness, surely?

No wonder Copnell and others warn the compliance pendulum has swung too far.

I'll try and mend fences now with The Observer.

I found the paper's profile of Richard Lapthorne, chairman of Cable & Wireless, extremely interesting. Not least because it revealed to me an accountancy career path I hadn't previously thought about. Lapthorne, a former finance director of British Aerospace and Courtaulds, has never served as a CEO. However that has not held him back when it comes to acquiring chairmanships and other non-exec positions.

As well as C&W, he is non-executive chairman of Morse PLC, Arlington Securities Ltd and the New Look Group. He is also a non-executive director of Oasis International Leasing in Abu Dhabi. Previouslty he chaired Amersham International.

I can't think of a parallel - but perhaps it's more common than I realise. Answers on a postcard please.

I have enjoyed The Observer since its resizing some months. And I particularly enjoy reading re-reading Accountancy Age when I pick up the business section. This Sunday's paper featured our story on how a Treasury crackdown is forcing James Bond overseas, though I did like The Observer's headline Who is Bond's worst enemy?

I also enjoyed the paper's story 'Corproates must come clean on tax'. But then I enjoyed it even more when we ran it last Thursday.

And with that I think I have both broken and unwritten rule of journalism (never turn on other media in 'pint') and killed off any chance of work from the paper. Oh well.

So Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling have been found guilty of fraud and conspiracy. Having covered the Enron case throughout its four-year duration, I can't say I'm surprised.

That said, the speed at which the jury returned its verdict was quicker than I expected.

It became clear about four o'clock (UK time) this afternoon that the verdict would emerge within the hour. At that point it was obvious it was going to be an emphatic verdict. Juries, not normally familiar with the machinations of big business tend to take weeks to reach a verdict. And given the weight of eveidence presented during the five-month trial it was hard to imagine the jury returning an emphatic not guilty verdict. Can you imagine the regulatory machine that would have been fired up had they done so?

Lay was found guilty on all six charges, Skilling on 19 of the 28 he faced. He was cleared on insider trading charges, something that seems incidental now. He didn't use inside information to trade Enron stock but he did willingly and knowlingly defraud investors and auditors. Ho hum.

Skilling, at least, is making noises about an appeal. It's hard to imagine that turning out any differently if indeed it materialises. That leaves sentencing. Worldcom CEO Bernie Ebbers got 25 years. These sentences will not be any shorter when they are announced in September.

One interesting aside: the first press release to cross my inbox on the verdict came from the UK distributor of the film Enron: the smartest guys in the room. Full marks for marketing opportunism.

My mind raced back this week to a warm glass of wine or three I enjoyed last October at Portcullis House, the ferociously expensive office building opposite the House of Commons created for members of parliament.

Truth be told I went for a nose around a lavish building, though I also attended ACCA's launch of its Public Policy Unit.

The unit was created so it could engage with 'policy makers on 'key issues such as corporate governance, business regulation, tax, audit, financial reporting, sustainable development, pensions, health, small business, public sector finance and lifelong learning'.

My reminicenses were sparked by this week's ICAEW announcement that it is involved with the first all-party parliamentary group to focus on accounting issues.

The Associate Parliamentary Group on Business, Finance and Accountancy has been set up, the institute tells us, with the intention of improving dialogue between government and finance experts, particularly those in the accounting profession.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

But tare differences between the two institute groups. ACCA's has a broader remit, the ICAEW's a slightly narrower one.

But they have plenty in common too. The ICAEW's is chaired by Tory MP and chartered accountant Mark Hoban. ACCA's by David Taylor 'a computer manager, lecturer and freelance accountant' before entering parliament. He's also a CIPFA members and, on tax matters at least, an irritant in ministrial eyes. Less Blairite and more Austin Mitchellite.

So the ICAEW is coming to the party a little late. But it is aligning itself with a group that in parliamentary terms has a stellar line-up: John McFall MP, chairman of the Commons Treasury select committee (and guest speaker at last week's ICAEW dinner), Liberal Democrat shadow chancellor Vincent Cable (one of the most respected MPs around when it comes to City matters) and Labour Peer Baroness Goudie, secretary of the Scottish Industry Forum.

Labour MP Sarah McCarthy Fry, a management accountant, will serve as secretary and rising Tory star and Putney MP Justine Greening will act as treasurer.

It's an impressive team. And in a Commons that is vastly underpowered when it comes to business and financial acumen, a necessary one.

My colleague Alex Hawkes reports this week on an extraordinary move by HMRC. The taxman plans to incentivise tax advisors so that they aren't tempted to peddle dodgy - sorry that should be probably read morally questionable - tax avoidance schemes.

It's a new and interesting tactic that throws up all sorts of questions - principally what rewards could be offered that would offer sufficient incentive to firms that are collectively already earning hundreds of millions of pounds each year from tax advice work.

That surely rules out financial rewards. So how about preferred bidding status for contracts? Or the ability to second as many bright young things to Whitehall as they like? Unlikely - all too politically sensitive.

Some combination of fewer client investigations and a closer role in consultation processes seems to be the hot favourite. But I suspect this one will run and run as HMRC seeks to make tax avoidance ‘not worthwhile’ by 2008.

Graham Durgan wasn't at the ICAEW annual dinner last night. Not in person at least. But the name of the institute's incoming president was on the lips of many in attendance.

The problem is that as well as taking over from current president Ian Morris next month, Durgan also owns a controlling stake in the newly appointed 'recommended supplier' of ACA training in Russia and China.

The ICAEW insists that throughout the tender process Durgan had 'declared a financial interest in Emile Woolf International' and was 'not involved in anyway in the evaluation process'.

All very commendable, but to be honest it's the very least we should expect.

Neither does it deal with the fundamental perception problem, which, privately, many at the institute acknowledge.

Even if, as I'm confident is the case, the contracts were awarded fairly and openly to his company Emile Wolf International, it is a course of action that just raises too many questions about process at an institute that, as chief executive Eric Anstee stressed last night, acts with integrity.

The damage is of course compounded by the significance of the contracts. The institute has been left in the blocks by the likes of CIMA and ACCA when it comes to getting a foothold in China.

As president can Durgan really afford to stand aside from discussing these issues when they are so fundamental to the institute's future? But if he does get involved he will be vulnerable to further charges of a conflict of interest.

I can only see three courses of action: tough it out and wait for the furore to die down; drop Emile Woolf and re-award the contract; or drop Durgan himself.

Given that the Independent, which broke the story yesterday, followed it up with another today on how Durgan's qualifications were misrepresented online, toughing it out will not be easy.

Dropping Emile Woolf, meanwhile, would imply that whoever picks up the contract isn't best placed to deliver on it.

Surely that only leaves one possible course of action.

We'll know once the council of past presidents which is looking into the matter reports back 'in the next few days'.

After a week away I'm getting back into the swing of things with the ICAEW dinner tomorrow night. It does, of course, mean I miss the other big event of the week. No, not the European Champions League final - CIPFA's Public Servant of the Year Awards. Now I know what you're thinking, couldn't two such high-profile organisation avoid such an obvious diary clash? Yes, has to be the answer. And anyone thinking that this sort of gaffe renders a merger between the ICAEW and UEFA extremely unlikely is probably spot on.

You might have read of Ernst & Young's embarrassment in China after it admitted a report it issued on the country’s bad loans was ‘factually erroneous’.

I have some sympathy for the firm. Doing business in China is extremely difficult –unprecedented levels of growth, getting to grips with a local way of doing things and the pervasive influence of the state all see to that. It's no different whether you are small-time or, as in E&Y's case, your Beijing HQ is in the largest commercial complex in Asia.

But the firm's current travails can't help but remind me of something that another Big Four partner told me when I visited his office in the same Beijing complex last year. ‘Getting information and corroborating it requires more effort than if you were auditing Royal Bank of Scotland,’ he said. Ouch.

In other respects the arguments sound eerily similar: Ms Tam complains of a low-profile campaign, inadequate proposals and a lack of broad-based support. Could these charges ever be levied at the UK profession in its campaigning for reform?

Anyone frustrated at how long attempts to introduce some form of limitation of auditors' liability have been dragging on may find some comfort int he fact that they are not alone.

Last month the Hong Kong government formally rejected a limitation proposal from the local ICA.

Now I won't dwell on HK's complicated political structure - suffice to say that unlike our own uniquely geographical constituencies, their Legislative Council has professional constituencies. And they have an accountancy member, Mandy Tam, who happens to be ACCA qualified.

Ms Tam is not taking no for an answer and is seeking to create a wider task force including members of both the accountancy and the law profession.

Is accountancy sexier post-Enron? There is plenty of evidence to suggest that that it is. According to a survey of more than 16,000 graduates last autumn, 20% believe that accounting firms offer the best career opportunities after leaving university.

Meanwhile the web is littered with sites that seek to highlight how it has changed. 'Welcome to the home of Extreme-Accounting: a new phenomenon that pushes accountants to their limits – and beyond', screams Extreme-accounting.com. (That's their exclamation mark not own I hasten to add).

But now we have suggestions that attempts by the profession to change its boring image are not working. According an admittedly superficial survey by the Financial Times, fresh talent working in finance, media and law continue to believe accountants are dull and boring.

Should we be surprised? Not really. One recruiter tells the FT it is a ‘predictable, safe job that pays reasonably well’ and that students choose it ‘because they don't know what else to do’. It's hard to argue with that logic.

But I still believe it doesn't have to be that way. I was at the big annual magazine industry conference this morning which sees titles like Accountancy Age take thepodium alongside the likes of Hello!, Grazia and Time Out.

No surprise there. But scanning the delegate list I noticed that accountants from Horwarth Clark Whitehill, Pricewaterhouseoopers and Deloitte were out in force. 

Before I get accused of disappearing up my journalistic proverbial, I'm not suggesting that a UK magazine conference is the very essence of all that is exciting and sexy in the world.

But equally it's a long way from the dull stereotype of accountancy that respondents to the FT sought to perpetrate.