As the financial crisis flowered in recent years, disclosure issues have gained greater attention. Some of the worst damage came in the structured finance area, where complex derivatives based on complex securities helped bring down one of the largest private insurance enterprises in the world. 

With deteriorating returns and growing illiquidity in markets for complex instruments, the debate over "mark-to-market" accounting has gained greater intensity. Some critics are laying the severity of the financial crisis in part on requirements that institutions mark illiquid positions down to unrealistic "market" values. Meanwhile, some critics of these critics say that blaming mark-to-market accounting for the financial meltdown is a bit like blaming the National Weather Service for Hurricane Katrina.   More