Perceptions of the Royal Mail Case in the Netherlands

The 1931 Royal Mail case, as a landmark event in the history of British accountancy, did not go unnoticed in the Netherlands. Awareness of the case is reflected by a fairly wide scattering of references in contemporary Dutch documentary sources, notably in the literature of the auditing profession. Because of this, the case provides a convenient opening for studying the comparative development of accounting and auditing in Britain and the Netherlands. This paper documents Dutch references to the Royal Mail case from the 1930s to the early 1950s and it presents an interpretation of the pattern and nature of these references. The materials brought together in this paper show that in interpreting the Royal Mail case, Dutch auditors paid more attention to general issues of auditor responsibility than to the issue of secret reserve accounting with which the case is traditionally associated. The case provided support for those who argued with Limperg that the Dutch profession was ahead of Britain in its views on auditor responsibility.