Economic crime has become a serious problem and the cost incurred on Swedish society as a direct consequence of this has been estimated within the range of 100 to 150 billion Swedish Kronor a year. With the increased productivity and expansion in industry both on a local and global scale, it is becoming increasingly difficult for authorities to both detect and control fraud and fraudulent activities. Consequently, fraud distorts the competition among industry in the sense that inefficient companies have the ability to drive more efficient ones out of business. Traditionally, accountants had limited power to take action against financial irregularities. The fact that the information acquired was deemed to be privileged, resulted in the undesired consequence of preventing accountants from informing police and or prosecutors from such fraudulent behaviour. Previously on suspicion of fraud accountants could only notify the company board and or managing director, alternatively a qualification could also be added to the audit report to highlight any discrepancies that may arise. As a result of this unsatisfactory situation the Companies Act was amended to include chapter 10 paragraph 38 also known as “duty of notification” which took affect on the 1st of January 1999. Due to this amendment accountants now have an obligation to report suspicion of fraudulent activities to the Regional Public Prosecutions Office. The Act now stipulates that an accountant has reporting duty on any vague suspicion of fraud, if the crime has been committed and if it is directed at a board member or managing director. At the time of writing (2004), the amendment has been in affect for just over five years. Surveys and statistics taken in this time by the Economic Crime Authority (Ekobrottsmyndigheten) indicate that the number of notifications from accountants has increased considerably since the amendment was included in the Companies Act. However despite the increase, the number of notifications is still rather insignificant.