The following is an extract from Accountancy Age, 25 Januar y 2001.

A powerful and ‘shadowy’ group of senior par tners from the seven largest firms has emerged to move closer to edging control of accounting standards from the world’s accountancy regulators .

. . they form the Global Steering Committee . . . The GSC has worked on plans to improve standards for the last two years after scathing criticism from investors that firms produced var ying standards of audit in different countries.

Discuss the effect on standard setting if control were to be edged from the world’s accountancy regulators.