Brussels, 09/10/2002 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday, European Commissioner Frits Bolkestein was to meet Harvey Pitt, Chairman of the American financial surveillance authority, the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The main topic of discussion was to be the new Sarbanes/Oxley Act, which the Congress adopted to tighten American rules on auditing following the Enron and WorldCom scandals. Commissioner Bolkestein wrote to Harvey Pitt early September to tell him of European concerns. He, notably, fears that the new rules should impose on European auditing companies registered in the United States rules incompatible with European legislation (see EUROPE of 11 September, p.15). They were also to raise the issue of convergence between American accounting standards (US GAAP) and International Accounting Standards (IAS) that will become compulsory for European companies quoted on the European stock exchange from 2004.