The accounting law appeared as a new procedure together with the globalisation period and the knowledge economy. The accounting information relevance for company patrimony approach is both an economic theoretical issue and an accounting law one. Apart from the norms regarding significance breakeven and economic axiom, contractual aspects are also important. The most precise, organized and significant data can be obtained only from accounting. In this way, managers and administrators would like to get information ignoring the real capacity of accounting as much as possible. For this kind of situations, it is the accounting law that puts things into light.accountancy law; globalization; patrimony; costs; IAS/IFRS

LEPĂDATU, Gheorghe

English

Research Papers in Economics

23
THE ACCOUNTING LAW AND THE GLOBALISATION ERA
Gheorghe V. LEPĂDATU, Prof. Ph.D.
Faculty of Finance, Banking and Accounting
“Dimitrie Cantemir” Christian University, Bucharest
Abstract
The accounting law appeared as a new procedure together with the 
globalisation  period  and  the  knowledge  economy.  The  accounting 
information relevance for company patrimony approach is both an economic 
theoretical issue and an accounting law one. Apart from the norms regarding 
significance  breakeven and  economic  axiom,  contractual aspects  are  also 
important. The most precise, organized and significant data can be obtained 
only from accounting. In this way, managers and administrators would like 
to  get  information  ignoring  the  real  capacity  of  accounting  as  much  as 
possible. For this kind of situations, it is the accounting law that puts things 
into light.
Key-words: accountancy  law,  globalization,  patrimony,  costs, 
IAS/IFRS
JEL Classification: K10, M41
1. Accounting in the globalisation era. The accounting law from theory 
to practice
The leap to the globalisation era is impossible without notable progress in the 
generalisation of certain rules and norms accepted by the accountants in different 
countries. Among these norms, principles and conventions, we currently have the 
International  Accounting  Standards  (IAS),  the  International  Financial  Reporting 
Standards (IFRS) and  other similar regulations. Their form, rate and  expansion 
ampleness shall be analysed by the administrators, managers and owners in order 
to see the rate at which their business can be developed at a global level without the 
discomfort  of  the  different  accounting  systems.  Strictly  methodologically,  the 
International  Accounting  Standards  and  the  other  similar  regulations  are  the 
international  accounting  law,  this  being  another  argument  in  recognising  the 
accounting law as a distinct and evolved branch of law. 
2.  The contemporary knowledge-based economy and the accounting law
Through  the  accounting  law,  the  calculation  of  costs  and  the  managerial 
accounting have an increasingly important role in pursuing the observance of the 
honest commercial practice regulations. Without such regulations, the commerce 
expansion,  especially  the  international  one,  is  impossible.  Ultimately,  the  most 
effective control instruments upon the relation between the cost and the acquisition 24
cost  can  be  found  in  the  accounting  of  the  economic  agents.  The  accounting 
arguments are based on numbers having documents as fundament. Therefore, the 
evaluations have a strict character and the deviation degree from the legal frame 
can  be  numerically  appreciated.  The  usage  of  the  accounting  instrument  in 
supervising the different market behaviour is part of the accounting law. Those 
documents  “produced”  by  accountants  that  can  legally  be  evidences  in  the
competition protection relations shall be chosen. Not any accounting document –
and not any accounting information – can enter the evidence system in litigations 
concerning  the  competition  protection.  In  the  contemporary  economy,  the 
accounting law shall be the legal base for selecting the accounting documents or 
information in such cases. 
The  management  of  the  patrimony  and  its  specific  activities,  such  as  the 
stock-taking provide rich study materials for the accounting law. The procedure 
aspects  concerning  the  actual  development  of  the  stock-taking,  the  stages,  the 
situations when it is compulsory, the capitalization of the stock-taking results and 
the  effects  of  the  different  concrete  situations  generated  by  this  activity  are 
moments when the accounting law intervenes. Certain chapters from it, such as the 
revaluation  of the  patrimony  are  in  direct  connection  to  the  law  branches.  The 
business  law  nowadays  cannot  exist  without  the  legislation  regarding  the 
revaluation.
The  elaboration  of  accounting  policies  by  companies  within  the  current 
international accounting law determine a set of juridical relations that cannot be 
clarified otherwise than by the accounting law. The internal organism, meant to 
propose,  and  the  decision  organ  will  simultaneously  be  submitted  to  the 
commercial law.
The budget method is more and more part of the management organism of 
the  modern  patrimonial  entities.  The  accounting  law  will  mainly  bring  under 
regulation the budget elaboration, their transmission and distribution, maybe their 
inclusion in the performance and remuneration indicator system. Interferences with 
the labour law and the commercial law occur at this stage. The emergence of a 
complex institution cannot alter the specific features of each of the law branches 
intervening in the budgetary procedure.
3. The  accounting  procedures  and  their  integration  in  the  general 
procedure system of the modern enterprise
The procedure aspects – by their nature – belong to law branches more than 
to  accounting  ones.  The  follow-up  of  the  accounting  procedures  and  their 
integration in the general procedure system of the modern enterprise can only be 
part of the accounting law in its position of branch with a deep interdisciplinary 
character.
One component of the contemporary accounting law is the functionality of 
the professional organisms. The relations between them and the public authorities 
or other civil organisations, the relations of the professional organisms with their 
members  or  with  the  representatives  of  the  chosen  organs,  including  the  own 
technical personnel, are elements belonging to the interest sphere of this new law 25
branch  to  which  the  jurists  together  with  the  economists  must  sometimes  give 
solutions. In order to do so, they will know the functionality particularities of the 
different organism types, also by relation to the international practice in similar 
situations.
The  inclusion  of  the  accounting  expertise  in  the  trial  means  in  different 
actions (civil, commercial, criminal etc.) rise the problem of interpretation (by the 
judge) of the conclusions registered by experts. Beyond the technical character of 
the expertise, the instance will appeal to norms of accounting law for establishing 
the right verdict.
One of the duties of the Human resources department is the elaboration of the 
job descriptions. In the case of the persons occupying leading positions or with 
attributions in the financial-accounting sector, this labour law document will lead 
to accounting law.
The role of the jurists must not be forgotten; since the beginning of the 21
st
century they have been members of the local, national and universal community. A 
new type of fraud is more frequent and for this reason it is natural to develop a law 
branch that should study the basic juridical relations. Instantly, the interest for this 
activity that can produce bigger financial disaster than we can imagine, emerges. In 
Eastern Europe, and especially in Romania, the population has been used to the 
dissimulation of this fraud type. We can say that the criminal law and the state’s 
coercion force  have reached the limit  of the  juridical relations regulated by the 
accounting law due to the privileged position of the guilty ones in this field.
The  patrimony  of  the  owners  association,  one  of  the  most  nationally 
expanded social organisation collective structures, is defended by the accounting 
and civil law norms. Most of the people live in a collective system and are included 
in this organisation system. The last years have registered numerous unauthorized 
inventories from the administration personnel of these entities, with direct effect on 
the personal income of the members. These frauds mean breach of the accounting 
law.
The activity within the collectivity includes the participation to the debate of 
current problems from fields of general interest. Such a field is sports nowadays. In 
Romania, there have been intense disputes within certain clubs or between different 
personalities. The analysis of the clubs’ leaders activity, the debates regarding the 
organisation  and  formation  of  the  professional  football  clubs  as  joint-stock 
companies and the manner of distribution of the veto right are only some examples 
drawing attention upon the difficulties the accounting law is approaching.
Within the interdependencies created between the older branches of law and 
the accounting law we find the definition of the entities; accounting is organised at 
their level. The notions of legal person, subsidiary, branch, work point are taken by 
the accounting law and the accounting from the classic law system. Without these 
exogenously defined categories, the accounting and the accounting law would not 
have the necessary fundamental guiding marks.26
4.  The  generalisation  of  the  application  of  international  accounting 
standards in the contemporary business environment
In the contemporary economy the  major differences are in the accounting 
system of the states based on the common law tradition, where we include the USA 
and England, and also in the systems based on the Code law tradition, where we 
include  France,  Germany,  and  all  the  other  states  that  have  adopted  the  coded 
judicial regulations. At present, when globally examining the components of the 
accounting systems from the USA and England, France, Germany we notice either 
important differences, or minor ones. 
When referring only to taxing the income from the businesses organised in 
enterprises, we must mention:
– the different way of calculation and book-keeping of the taxes upon the 
incoming  income  in  France,  Germany  resides  in  the  quite  different  fiscal 
regulations;
– another example regards the building of reserves.
In both of the quoted countries there are regulations; the patrimonial units 
have the right to constitute a legal reserve by taking benefits within a percentage 
(normally, of 5%). It is also provisioned that such an operation can be continued 
for many years, until it reaches approximately 10% of the capital (10% of the stock 
capital  in  France,  10%  of  the  nominal  value  of  the  stock  capital  in  Germany). 
These benefit  takings  do  not  reflect  in  costs,  as  they  are  exempt  from the  tax 
additional to the profit. It is useful to highlight that the accounting rules adopted in 
Japan  were  initially  moulded  in  compliance  with  the  German  accounting  as 
consequence of an association on many levels between these states in the first half 
of  the  20
th  century.  Recently,  we  can  notice  an  American  influence  in  the 
accounting field and this leads to a generalisation of the US-GAAP system.
In spite of the American influence that manifested itself especially in the field 
of public accounting, the Japanese accounting and the financial relations continue 
to  be  in  line  with  the  European  accounting  model.  There  have  been  provided 
statutory dispositions that have aimed at diminishing the benefits, in the sense of an 
amortization with the legal provisions in the US or UK-GAAP. Caution is one of 
the most important principles in accounting.
Analogous, the states in Central and South America that have been under 
Spanish  and  Portuguese  influence  have  similar  accounting  rules  to  the  ones 
effective in the European states.
Although there were certain specific differences in the field of accounting in 
the  above-mentioned  states,  the  conventions,  principles  and  rules  of  the  book-
keeping are universally applicable and the fiscal differences are mostly attenuated. 
The  necessity for the thoroughness  of the  harmonisation  of the fiscal situations 
system leads to a generalisation of the I.A.S.C standards. Especially the IAS 1-41 
standards can and must become benchmarks.
The internationalisation of the financial markets and the deeper development 
of  the  multinational  societies  are  objective  factors  leading  to  a  complex 
organisation  in  the  field  of  accounting  and  especially  with  references  to  the 
financial situations.27
The multinational companies have become a reality in the business world. 
Especially in the last quarter of the 20
th century, they have assumed a predominant 
role  in the  various  market segments and  have stimulated  many activities  in the 
national economies of various countries.
5.  The accounting is dependent on the economic system it belongs to
Accounting is a component of the economic sciences and at the same time a 
powerful technique lately improved in order to be useful to people and persons as 
much as possible. Accounting is anchored in the economy based on knowledge. 
The  political  economy  provides  the  basic  conceptual  “infrastructure”  to  the 
accounting and the other economic disciplines. The accounting – although having a 
great functional autonomy – will still be dependent on the type of economic system 
it belongs to. In the globalisation era we meet for and against anti-globalisation 
opinions  and  arguments.  Therefore,  there  will  be  points  of  view  that  will  tie 
accounting to this tendency or that will highlight its development in the isolationist 
national context. Some economists will study the possibility of adaptation of the 
accounting to the great challenges of the transparent business from any place of the 
Earth in order for the world’s great business to be stimulated. Others will notice 
errors or elements of inherent incompatibility between the international accounting 
environment and the national economic realities.
Conclusions
Accounting  plays  an  important  role  in  the  management  of  the  modern 
patrimonial entities. This contribution can be seen on many levels.
In the modern management system the budgets are frequently used for the 
programming,  supervising  and  control  of  the  activity,  as  well  as  for  the 
establishment of certain easily measurable parameters. Data from accounting are 
mainly used in the foundation, elaboration and follow-up of the budgets. The main 
“referential” for the budget indicators is the financial and managerial accounting of 
the patrimonial entity.
Sometimes,  there  are  patrimonial  evaluations  and  re-evaluations  in  the 
current activity of the modern enterprise or of the activity developed. Accounting is 
used for these as well, besides other sources.
The cost management is one concept of the modern management. In order to 
calculate the costs of the patrimonial entity, most of the data is taken from the 
financial  accounting  field.  The  calculation  itself  is  part  of  the  managerial 
accounting activity.
The development of the patrimonial entities, as well as the supplementary 
financial resource attraction from the banking system or from the capital market 
mean  the  elaboration  of  certain  feasibility  studies  or  business  plans.  A  lot  of 
information found only in the accounting field is needed for these future activity 
orientation documents.
The manager’s or administrator’s dashboard is another leadership instrument 
proposed by the contemporary business science. Within this dashboard, a lot of the 
information  comes  from  accounting.  Some  are  registered  as  such,  others  are 
elaborated. Accounting remains a significant provider of such information.28
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THE ACCOUNTING LAW AND THE GLOBALISATION ERA

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THE ACCOUNTING LAW AND THE GLOBALISATION ERA

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