Corporate Governance: shifting accountability for "going concern" assurance

The Cadbury Committee drew attention to the need for improved assurance regarding the going concern status of companies. This paper presents evidence drawn from the comments on two exposure drafts of the auditing standard SAS 130 to show that those arguing for a limitation on the "foreseeable future" were able to limit the impact of the Cadbury recommendations for both auditors and directors without attracting any significant volume of protest on behalf of users or the general interest. A model of a cooperative game between directors and auditors is used to show that this was a predictable outcome.