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60's and 70's:
The creation of the Robert Mazars’ firm.
The clientele had greatly evolved, and the firm received several auditing and chartered accountancy contracts for large companies based in Paris.
The Cabinet Robert Mazars limited liability company was created on 1 January 1965.
His business and other responsibilities frequently brought Robert Mazars to Paris, where the Touche Ross agency, one of the Anglo-American “Big Eight” of that era, provided him with an office on the Boulevard Haussman.
Finally, the auditing team moved to Paris in late 1973 to three rooms in the Rue Drouot, while the rest of the firm remained in Rouen.
The same year, the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) was created at the International Congress in Sydney, and has since played an important role in the establishment of international standards. Robert Mazars was the first French member, representing the French Institute of Chartered Accountants (OEC) and the French Accounting and Auditing Institute.
From 1970 onwards the ‘Cabinet Robert Mazars’ became increasingly well known for its skill and its independence and was entrusted with ever more important contracts.
Robert Mazars was granted a unique view of the French business world through his prestigious clientele: official audits for the French electrical and natural gas companies EDF and GDF (1976), audits for the Willot group (1974), for the Bull Machinery Company (1975), during Citroen’s acquisition by Peugeot (1976), of L.M. Ericsson’s accounts when Thomson acquired their telephony activity in France as well as the official auditing of Charbonnages de France (1978), the audit for the merger of the Caisse Nationale des Marchés de l’État with the Crédit Hôtelier (1981) and auditing and negotiations for the acquisition of Etablissements Boniface by Borden USA (1982).
During this period, the Cabinet Robert Mazars also received government auditing contracts for Aérospatiale and its subsidiaries, Airbus Industries, Thomson, the Compagnie Bancaire and its subsidiaries, the national train company SNCF, Hachette, Publicis, and auditing assignments with Boussac Saint Frères, Chapelle Darblay, Chantiers de la Ciotat, and subsidiaries of Promodès.
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In 1962, Robert Mazars became a member of the Superior
Council of the French Accounting Institute, which at that time
was composed of two categories, chartered accountants and
“registered” accountants.
The Institute’s (OEC) Annual Congress in 1963,
focused on standards of diligence in accounting work,
was an historic turning point: “It is members’
responsibilities, rather than their rights, which came
to the fore.” In concrete terms, chartered accountants
base their expertise on their tools (and not on their results), so it
was “crucial to defi ne the tools for each type of assignment, that
is, the standards of diligence.”
Following this Congress, a Permanent Committee on Standards
of Diligence was created within the Institute (OEC), which
task was to draft basic doctrinal guidelines.
It
began its work in 1964, and Robert Mazars remained at its helm
as president for 25 years. Around forty recommendations would
eventually be published, which today “are recognised as one of the
premier sources of what we have come to call accounting law”
on businesses.
Because France exhibited considerable delays in this area, the
Congress of 1965 was again devoted to “revision, the theory and
practise of accounting control methods”. The term “audit” was
not yet in use in France... but the concept had arrived and was
coming into general use. It gained a legal basis with the 1966 law
on businesses.
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