Prologue

This Festschrift pays tribute to an extraordinary man, a distinguished law professor, a prolific scholar and a thoughtful teacher whose life and work have inspired many students, academics, judges, lawyers, accountants and managers throughout the world. His lucidity of thought and expression, vast knowledge, maturity of judgement, steadiness of temperament, fair-mindedness and exceptional linguistic skills have always impressed me. It was, therefore, a great honour and privilege for me, in 1991, to receive, jointly with Detlev F. Vagts, the Max Planck Research Award for ‘internationally outstanding research accomplishments’. We used the generous funds that were attached to the Award to organise an international conference in Constance, Germany, on ‘Democracy, Market Economy, and the Law’. The conference took place at a time when the fall of communism and the subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union had started to change the world's perspectives and the transition to democracy required answers to numerous unprecedented legal, economic and political problems. A few years later, Detlev and I organised a second international conference at Lake Constance. The conference dealt with ‘Financial Accounting and Auditing in Global Capital Markets’. At this conference, lawyers and economists from Europe and the United States convened to discuss some of the most pressing issues resulting from the widening gap between European and US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and the need for internationally acceptable financial reporting standards that lead to transparency, reliability and efficient capital markets.