Editor's comment: end of laissez-faire

Eight years after the crash when the likes of Lehman Brothers and Northern Rock collapsed and a raft of UK banks including HBOS were forced into state ownership, the new EU Audit Regulation and Directive (ARD) is now in force across the EU.

The scale of losses disguised in the books of major financial institutions back in 2008 forced EU chiefs to question the whole value and effectiveness of audit, asking the obvious question about how multimillion pound exposure to debt could be ignored with such impunity. It was clear that the cosy relationship between auditors and their clients needed urgent review.

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