The accounting regulation in the French context: The case of corporate groups (1921-1943)

The aim of this paper is to shed light on the role of legislators and lawyers in establishing accounting regulations concerning corporate groups in France during the 1930s and the Occupation (1940 - 1944). A review of bills proposing accounting regulation shows that no significant progress was to be achieved. Furthermore, while some lawyers called for a comprehensive regulation of corporate groups, no such progress was made during the inter-war period. Ultimately it's the Vichy government which introduced the first regulations on accounting subsidiaries in the French Plan Comptable and limited the reciprocal shareholdings in the Act of March 4, 1943.