Rob Carpenter is a senior manager at a prestigious accounting firm, and was recently transferred to the international division of acquisitions and mergers. His first assigment is to make a reconmmendation to a client regarding the acquisition of a swiss company. However, Rob has no knowledge or expereince with Swiss companies or swiss accounting. After spending hours analyzing the swiss company's annual report, Carpenter concludes that swiss accounting is a whole lot different than the U.S. accounting priciples he is more familiar with. during his analysis, Rob is astounded with the level of "unnecessary" detail that is included in the anual reports (e.g., social, environmental, and employee disclosures) and thinks that there is not enough information on the more important items (e.g., segmental disclosures). he also notices some differences in the financial statements. he doesn't understand why.
1. Are the disclosures included in the swiss annual report really "unnecessary"? Explain. What social, economic, and institutional factors in switzerland might be causing the inclusion of these disclosures?
2. Explain one of the differnces in finanical reporting between a swiss company and the reporting in another country.