The new president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bermuda (ICAB), Coopers & Lybrand Chartered Accountant, George Holmes, will seek the implementation of fresh recommendations for the industry.

Mr. Holmes was established as president with vice president, Senator Terry Lister of Deloitte & Touche and a new council last month.

ICAB said in a statement this week that a number of legal, insurance and business developments have converged in recent years to create a unique unfair liability exposure to accountants who operate with unlimited personal liability.

Holmes named president Members of the profession are working with government and have made suggestions regarding changes in policy to allow for the incorporation of practising accountants.

Also being explored is the possibility of permitting practising firms to organise as limited liability partnerships, once enabling legislation is approved.

Along with the broadening of public practice in recent decades, the services provided by CA firms have been extended to include services such as actuarial, valuation, liquidation, forensic and investigative accounting and management and information technology.

ICAB said this trend had a number of benefits, enabling firms to provide more varied services and generating greater diversity in career paths for CAs. It had also created opportunities for other professionals to work together with global CA firms in advising businesses.

CAs are working with a number of professionals to build multi-disciplinary practices, challenging them to establish a self-regulatory environment that embraces the multi-disciplinary firms where non-CAs also participate.

The statement continued: "The profession must establish guidelines to ensure that the ethical standards of the CA profession upon which the public expects to rely are upheld by these multi-disciplinary firms.

"An inter-provincial committee, on which Mr. Holmes served (in Canada), has reported in these areas and one of the first items of business for the new council will be implementation of the recommendations here in Bermuda.'' Mr. Holmes is known for the work he has done over several years, examining the accounts of a selected group of Bermuda hotels annually as the Bermuda Hotel Association (BHA) sought to prove the dire straits the industry found itself in.

Mr. Holmes was seen on a yearly basis at BHA press conferences, adding credence to hotelier assertions that many were losing money.

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