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The information master: Jean-Baptiste Colbert's secret state intelligence system

In the late 1960s I had the good fortune to teach accounting and finance at INSEAD in Fontainebleau in France. While there I was surprised to discover that the preparation and publication of consolidated financial statements was not a widespread practice in France, even by listed companies. Furthermore, French techniques of consolidation appeared to vary from company to company and to differ from those in the US and UK, although I could not at the time find a French textbook on the subject. It was this and similar ‘discoveries’ that helped to inspire in me an interest in comparative international accounting and a decade or so later I produced a textbook (still going strong) on the subject , co-authored with Chris Nobes. Although the author of the book under review is primarily addressing a French audience, his book can be strongly recommended to researchers on comparative accounting of all countries and more particularly those pursuing comparative international accounting history. This is the main viewpoint taken in this review. As it happened, the late 1960s were a turning point in the history of consolidation in France, with the publication by the Conseil National de Comptabilité (CNC) in 1968 of its report Consolidation des bilans et des comptes. The CNC’s recommendations were not mandatory, but the Commission des Opérations de Bourse (COB), the stock exchange regulator, required French companies to publish consolidated statements in prospectuses as from 1 July 1971. In the book under review Didier Bensadon explains, with a wealth of detail and diverse sources (the professional accounting literature; company archives, notably those of Compagnie Francaise des Pétroles (CFP) and Pechiney; bank archives; ministerial archives; interviews; and the secondary literature of books, journal articles, and dissertations), what happened before (from 1929) and after (up to 1985, the year in which legislation was passed to implement the Seventh Directive in France). Why was group financial reporting by large companies in France still in the late 1960s of ‘wretched quality’ (p. 140), compared with that in the US and UK? Bensadon, discussing the pre-war period, blames a weak, divided accountancy profession, lacking social status; a corrupt financial press and a fear of adverse tax consequences. The challenge to French inaction on consolidation came after World War II from the outside. French accountants became more aware of practice in the US and companies such as CFP and Pechiney, which had shown little interest in providing detailed financial information to their shareholders, realised that they could not gain access to the US capital market unless they published consolidated statements. Some importation of AngloSaxon concepts, techniques and practices could not be avoided. However, French companies were determined to adapt them to French conditions. The details of this importation and adaptation are the most interesting aspect of the book from a comparative point of view. Two examples can be given here. Unlike American groups, holdings of less than 50% were very common in France, which meant that the representatives of French companies argued that proportional consolidation, hardly known in the US and UK, should constitute an important element in French consolidation theory and practice. In the US and UK it was well established that consolidated statements were irrelevant for tax purposes. This could not be assumed in France. Thus, fears of the tax consequences meant that the CNC did