Answers:

1.IASB, FASB Release Report on Status of Convergence

5/2/2012 On April 23, 2012 the International Accounting Standards Board posted the following information regarding the status of convergence projects with FASB:

A joint IASB/FASB progress report describing [IASB-FASB convergence] activities has now been issued via the Financial Stability Board, and is available to download by clicking here [external website]. For more information about convergence between IFRS and U.S. GAAP, please click here. On April 20, at the close of the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting held at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington, D.C., there was mention of the importance of the FASB and IASB meeting their planned mid-2013 deadline for convergence. See the final communiqu of the G20 Finance Ministers, as noted in the FEI blog. Additional IASB News Other significant recent developments at IASB are linked below:

Sir Callum McCarthy appointed as a Trustee of the IFRS Foundation 25 Apr 2012 Speech by Hans Hoogervorst at IFRS Taxonomy Annual Convention 2012 Review of IFRS Interpretations Committee published April IFRS for SMEs Update April 2012 Board meeting podcast recording available SME Implementation Group publishes two final Q&As 27 Apr 2012 IASB Update April 2012

http://www.financialexecutives.org/KenticoCMS/News---Publications/archive/2012/May/IASB,-FASBRelease-Report-on-Status-of-Convergence.aspx

http://www.mossadams.com/mossadams/media/Documents/Publications/International/IFRS_Newslett er_Issue-2_2011.pdf

---bridging http://www.kpmg.com/Global/en/IssuesAndInsights/ArticlesPublications/In-theHeadlines/Documents/in-the-headlines-2012-06.pdf --- drawing na bridge http://www.financialstabilityboard.org/publications/r_120420d.pdf ---white paper 2.

Henry Benson, Baron Benson

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search For other people named Henry Benson, see Henry Benson (disambiguation).
The Right Honourable

The Lord Benson

Personal details Henry Alexander Benson 2 August 1909 Johannesburg, South Africa 5 March 1995 (aged 85) Chichester, Sussex, England British Accountant

Born

Died Nationality Profession

Henry Alexander Benson, Baron Benson (2 August 1909 5 March 1995) was a British accountant best known as a partner of Coopers & Lybrand, an advisor to the Bank of England, his work organising the accountancy profession as president of ICAEW and for the part he played in various Royal Commissions. Born in Johannesburg to Alexander Benson and his wife Florence Cooper, the daughter of Francis Cooper of Cooper Brothers & Co, Benson was educated initially in South Africa before

moving to the United Kingdom in 1926, where he started training as an accountant with Cooper Brothers. After qualifying in 1932 he continued to work there, and became a salaried partner two years later at the age of 25. Following the outbreak of the Second World War Benson joined the Grenadier Guards as a second lieutenant, and was seconded to the Special Operations Executive in 1942 and then to the Ministry of Supply in 1944. Benson helped build Coopers into an important international audit and accountancy firm as Coopers & Lybrand, and was the first living non-American elected to the Accounting Hall of Fame. He is known within the legal profession for his work on the Benson Commission, the report of which was one of the precursors of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990.

Contents

1 Early life 2 Coopers & Lybrand and war work 3 Other work 4 Family life 5 Awards and recognition 6 References 7 Bibliography

Early life
Benson was born on 2 August 1909 in Johannesburg to Alexander Benson, a solicitor, and his wife Florence Cooper, daughter of Francis Cooper, one of the founders of Coopers & Lybrand.[1] He was educated at Parktown Boys' High School where he Matriculated in 1925.[2] During a visit to London when he was 14, Benson and his mother had a meeting at Cooper Brothers, at which the partners made Benson an offer of employment as soon as he left school. He took up the offer in October 1926, and began as an articled clerk. Benson qualified as an Associate Chartered Accountant in 1932, coming eleventh in the intermediate examination and fourth in the final examination out of 1088 candidates.[2]

Coopers & Lybrand and war work

Benson started working for Cooper Brothers & Co as soon as he qualified, and became a partner in the firm in 1934 at the age of 25.[3] After the start of the Second World War in 1939 Benson became a second lieutenant in the Grenadier Guards thanks to the influence of his uncle D'Arcy Cooper and Viscount Trenchard.[2] Benson spent a period guarding Windsor Castle, and while there wrote a report on improving the ways in which the soldiers communicated.[1] In 1942 he was promoted to Major and transferred to the Special Operations Executive, where he stayed for two years until he was promoted to Colonel and transferred to the Ministry of Supply to help reorganise munitions factories.[2] Benson became Director of Operations (accounts), putting him in charge of 100,000 people, and

by the time he left the army in 1945 he was an acting Brigadier.[2] After leaving the army he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of the work he had done.[3] After returning to Coopers after the end of the Second World War, Benson became enthusiastic about expanding the firm, something the firm's senior partner Stuart Cooper disagreed with.[2] After several meetings in 1946 Cooper resigned, and Benson and his coworker Sydney John Pears took the reins of the company. They immediately overhauled the way the company was organised, and Benson published an internal manual governing how audits were to be conducted, which later became Cooper's Manual of Auditing, the standard textbook for accountancy students in the United Kingdom.[1][2] In 1956 the American accounting firm Lybrand, Ross Brothers and Montgomery contacted Coopers and offered to sell them their London and Paris branches, an offer Benson accepted. This was seen as an opportunity to expand overseas, and from 1 January 1957 the company began working internationally and became known as Coopers & Lybrand.[2] By the time Benson retired from Coopers in 1975 the company had 2,207 employees in the United Kingdom and 16,179 overseas, and Coopers & Lybrand was a leading audit and accountancy firm.[1]

Other work
In 1956 Benson became a member of the Council of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales, a position he held until 1975.[4] He served as its Vice-President from 1965 to 1966, when he became President.[3] As President he saw the importance of international auditing standards, and was a founding member of the International Accounting Standards Committee.[5] Benson became its first Chairman in 1973, and was initially meant to retire after a year before he was persuaded to stay on until 1976.[5] After his retirement in 1975 his main focus was on his work as an advisor to the Bank of England, but he also took on various jobs for the British Government. In 1962, on the recommendation of Dr Richard Beeching, the Government of Northern Ireland commissioned Benson to report on the future of the railways of the Ulster Transport Authority. In 1963 Benson submitted his report, which recommended closing all railways in Northern Ireland except the Belfast commuter lines to Bangor, County Down and Larne and the main line between Belfast and the Republic of Ireland, and the reduction of the main line between Portadown and the Republic to single track.[6] Later in the 1960s Benson chaired a Committee of Enquiry for The Jockey Club into the UK's horse-racing industry. Its report was published in June 1968. In 1976 he became chairman of the Royal Commission on Legal Services, which became known as the Benson Commission due to his involvement.[1] The Commission was asked to "examine the structure, organisation, training and regulation of the legal profession and to recommend those changes that would be desirable to the interests of justice",[7] and after three years produced a report "meticulously researched and backed by statistics, of the services given by the legal profession; it swept aside all cobwebs and displayed a deep understanding of all aspects of the framework and practices of the law".[1] The report did not go as far as some reformers desired;[1]

it ruled out the possibility of partnerships between barristers,[8] upheld the idea that a split profession (one with both solicitors and barristers, in contrast to a fused profession)[9] and also rejected the suggestion to allow solicitors rights of audience in the High Court.[10] Despite this it contained several organisational suggestions for a profession with little in the way of straightforward organisation, such as a Council of Legal Services to advise the Lord Chancellor and a single unified body for barristers, rather than having both the Inns of Court and the Bar.[1] Little of the report was acted on, but some sections were well received by the legal profession, and Benson was elected a Bencher of the Inner Temple in 1983.[2]

Family life
Benson married Anne Virginia "Ginny" Macleod on 2 September 1939. They had three children Peter Benson in 1940, who later became a partner in Coopers & Lybrand and twins Michael and Phyllida Benson in 1943.[2] Both his wife and children survived Benson, who died on 5 March 1995 in Chichester, Sussex.[2]

Awards and recognition

Benson received many awards for his work, both official and industrial. He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1946[11] and was raised to a Knight Grand Cross in 1971.[12] In 1981 he was made a life peer as Baron Benson, of Drovers in the County of West Sussex.[13] He became treasurer of the Open University in 1975 and a trustee of the Times Trust in 1967.[4] In 1983 he became an Honorary Bencher of the Inner Temple, and in 1984 he became the first living non-American to be inducted into the Accounting Hall of Fame.[3] In 1995 PricewaterhouseCoopers established a bursary in his name for students studying at the London School of Economics.[14]
-another Henry Alexander Benson was articled in 1926 to L.H. Weatherley Esq, a Partner in Cooper Brothers & Co, Chartered Accountants in the City of London. His grandfather, Francis Cooper, was one of the founding Partners of the now internationally established firm of Coopers & Lybrand. Lord Benson recalls his unrivalled 63 years of professional and public life with wit and clarity - a life which encompasses public practice, the conduct of large scale investigations and special assignments, including the "Ground Nuts" scheme, Rolls Razor Ltd, the horse -racing industry and latterly the Carrian Case and the Roskill Committee. His wide experience and achievements also include: being awarded the CBE in 1946, knighted in 1964, advanced to GBE in 1971 and created Baron Benson in the 1981 election as President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants' Council in 1966 and appointment as Vice President of the UEC in 1969. From 1973 to 1976 he served as the first Chairman of the International Accounting Standards Committee of which he was the principal architect and now represents professional accounting bodies in more than 75 countries. He was Governor of the Bank of England for eight years until 1983. Despite the claims of public service and the pressures of leading his firm into the ranks of foremost international practices, Lord Benson has never declined to serve his profession. Successive governments, professional

and trade associations have continually sought Lord Benson's advice and he has served on a wide range of tribunals, committees and enquiries. Lord Benson celebrates his 80th birthday this year and is still an active member in the House of Lords where he sits as a Crossbencher and as a member of Select Committees. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Accounting-Life-Autobiography-Henry-Benson/dp/0749400293 ---http://www.iasb.org/NR/rdonlyres/363A9F3B-D41C-41E7-971579715E815BB1/0/EDConceptualFrameworkMar10.pdf ---book cover brown