Generally people who play accounting tricks like the ones in that story go to prison in the US too.
As an example, it just happened at Goldman over the last month or so. A trader played games on the accounting of a big trade trying to hide the trade. 9 months in jail.
If you're talking about the financial meltdown and why more people haven't gone to prison, well that's a significantly larger problem than simply lying in your accounting. It's a hugely more complicated problem than what happened in Iceland (or Enron, for an example of a US equivalent). Even determining where the blame lies is hugely contentious and political, let alone proving it to a jury and sending people to jail.