The enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the US, together with a plethora of initiatives to shake up accountancy and auditing in Europe, might have been expected to win the accountancy profession a reprieve from scandal. News this month of material weaknesses in internal controls at Adecco, the world's largest temporary employment agency, suggests otherwise.

Coming after scandals at Ahold, the Dutch supermarket group, and Parmalat, the now notorious Italian food and dairy group, this latest upset at Zurich-based Adecco carries a disturbing echo of Enron and other scandals that shook confidence in the integrity of reporting in the US.