Participants included the President of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, together with the President-in-office of the European Council, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, and US President George W. Bush. A number of EU Commissioners also participated as did the US Secretaries of State and Commerce. The goal of the TABD is to promote closer transatlantic ties and eliminate barriers in the transatlantic market. The TABD agreed to make recommendations to governments on four priority areas, one of which involves IFRSs. The priority areas are (1) open trade and security, (2) intellectual property rights and the fight against counterfeiting, (3) capital markets and International Accounting Standards, and (4) the World Trade Organisation and the Doha Development Round.

An excerpt from our comments:

We strongly encourage the use and enhancement of the due process mechanisms suggested in the paper, and we have attached our specific comments on each mechanism in the Appendix to this letter. We believe that the due process mechanisms mentioned in the paper should be, and in many cases are, inherent in the operations of the IASB. However, we do believe that these mechanisms have not been used to their fullest potential. We believe it is important that this review of due process is undertaken so as to ensure that the IASB gains the most benefit out of future due process activities; that is they are able to use the inputs gained from constituents to ensure the development of the highest quality standards.