October

Notes from third day of October meeting

18 Oct 2006

The International Accounting Standards Board held its October 2006 Board meeting at its offices, 30 Cannon Street, London, on Monday through Thursday 16-19 October 2006.

Click here for the preliminary and unofficial Notes Taken by Deloitte Observers at the meeting.

Notes from second day of October 2006 IASB meeting

17 Oct 2006

The International Accounting Standards Board held its October 2006 Board meeting at its offices, 30 Cannon Street, London, on Monday through Thursday 16-19 October 2006.

Click here for the preliminary and unofficial Notes Taken by Deloitte Observers at the meeting.

Notes from first day of October 2006 IASB meeting

17 Oct 2006

The International Accounting Standards Board held its October 2006 Board meeting at its offices, 30 Cannon Street, London, on Monday through Thursday 16-19 October 2006.

Click here for the preliminary and unofficial Notes Taken by Deloitte Observers at the meeting.

PCAOB guidance on audits of share options

17 Oct 2006

The US Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has published staff guidance on auditing the fair value of share options granted to employees.

The guidance is in the form of Staff Questions and Answers on applying the fair value measurement provisions of FASB Statement 123R Share-Based Payment, which became effective 15 June 2006. FAS 123R is very similar to IFRS 2 Share-based Payment. Click for:

India is studying full adoption of IFRSs

15 Oct 2006

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has set up a task force to explore the possibility of adopting all International Financial Reporting Standards in full, without modification, as Indian standards.

The 11-member task force is chaired by S C Vasudeva, chairman of ICAI's accounting standard board. It will develop a concept paper on adoption of IFRSs in India. Currently, many ICAI standards reflect modifications of IFRSs. The task force was announced in the October 2006 message to members from the President of the ICAI, T N Manoharan:

In the globalised economic scenario, several multinational companies are establishing subsidiaries in India and many Indian companies are forming subsidiaries abroad. Flow of investments in the international scene clearly indicates that the stakeholders are spread across the globe. As the geographical barriers are vanishing, e-commerce is enlarging, and as raising of capital in foreign markets is increasing, the need for examining the issues relating to convergence of Indian Accounting Standards with International Accounting Standards is assuming greater significance. We are in touch with the IASB in this regard besides considering this issue internally. Recently, a task force has been constituted to consider the challenges involved and to prepare a road map for this purpose.

 

SEC Commissioner discusses reconciliations

14 Oct 2006

In remarks before the Institute of European Affairs in Dublin recently, US SEC Commissioner Paul S. Atkins spoke about the adoption of IFRSs in Europe, the reconciliation to US GAAP for SEC registrants using IFRSs, and the possibility of the European Commission requiring a reconciliation to IFRSs for companies that trade in Europe and that prepare US GAAP financial statements.

Here is an excerpt from Commissioner Atkins's comments:

The coherent consistent application of IFRS is an essential prerequisite to the elimination of the reconciliation requirement in the United States. It will take us some time to assess how IFRS is being implemented and enforced, but I am optimistic that we will complete our assessment, well within the 2009 goal for reconciliation, and be able to determine that the reconciliation requirement is unnecessary. Our new Chief Accountant, Conrad Hewitt, is committed to working to achieve this objective as quickly as possible.

I am keenly aware that shareholders ultimately bear the costs of reconciliation – like many of our regulations – and these costs are considerable. For this reason, I am very interested in what appears to be growing European sentiment against requiring reconciliation for U.S. issuers that currently use GAAP in their EU filings. Requiring U.S. companies to reconcile their U.S. GAAP financial statements to IFRS would undermine our efforts towards mutual recognition by senselessly diverting attention and energy from our shared, transatlantic objective of making sure that IFRS succeeds. U.S. GAAP is already an established standard that has proven itself to investors over time. The need for reconciliation disappears when IFRS shows itself to be, like GAAP, a consistently applied, high quality set of accounting standards. It is in everyone's best interest to achieve the elimination of the reconciliation requirement as quickly as possible.

Click for Full Speech (PDF 77k).

World Congress opens in one month

13 Oct 2006

More than 5,000 delegates will convene at the 17th World Congress of Accountants, which opens on 13 November 2006, and continues through 17 November 2006, in Istanbul, Turkey.

Workshop and plenary sessions will be organised around the theme Generating Economic Growth and Stability Worldwide. Session topics will include generating economic growth and stability through the accounting profession in the developing nations, capital markets stability worldwide and the accounting profession, and the role of professional accountants in business in contributing to value creation worldwide. 

Commissioner McCreevy's remarks on globalised auditing

13 Oct 2006

In a speech titled EU Audit Regulation and International Cooperation, EU Internal Markets Commissioner Charlie McCreevy focused on the implementation of the EU Directive on statutory audit and the attention is being paid to international issues within this process.

An excerpt:

Companies and audit firms have long since gone global. It is us – the legislators and regulators – who have to adapt to this fact. When we design the regulatory framework in our own jurisdictions we also have to think about the effects this will have on others. We live in a world of spill-overs. Rules passed in the EU affect US business and vice-versa. This insight has to be part of the regulatory process right from the start.

Click for:

A few changes to IASB October meeting agenda

13 Oct 2006

We posted the agenda of the IASB's October 2006 Board meeting in our News Story of 5 October 2006.

The Board has announced the following changes to that agenda. As a result of those changes, the Board will not meet on Friday 20 October 2006.
  • Education session on interest margin hedging postponed
  • IFRS 2 Share-based Payment has moved from Friday 20 October to Wednesday 18 October
  • Annual improvements moved from Friday 20 October to Tuesday 17 October
  • Accounting standards for small and medium-sized entities will begin slightly earlier on Wednesday 18 October

PCAOB Chairman addresses auditor oversight

12 Oct 2006

Mark W. Olson, Chairman of the US Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), spoke on Auditor Oversight and its Implications on the Resilience of our Capital Markets at the FEE Conference on Audit Regulation in Brussels today.

Click to Download Chairman Olson's Remarks (PDF 100k). Here is an excerpt:

To illustrate the importance of regulatory coordination to the PCAOB, more than 700 of the [audit] firms registered with the PCAOB are in countries outside the United States, although they may be affiliated with large, U.S. based audit firms. As required by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, many of these firms are registered with the PCAOB because they audit non-U.S. companies whose securities trade in U.S. markets and are required to file audited financial statements with the SEC. In addition, as also provided for in the Act, a number of other non-U.S. firms are registered because they audit or wish to audit significant non-U.S. subsidiaries of multinational U.S. companies. With respect to both categories of firms, the PCAOB continues to work closely with its foreign counterparts to optimize efficiency in the oversight of these non-US firms.

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