IASB chairman calls 2013 'a very productive year for the IASB'
10 Dec 2013
At the 2013 AICPA National Conference on Current SEC and PCAOB Developments, IASB Chairman Hans Hoogervorst measured the IASB's achievements against the SEC Staff Report published in July 2012.
In his speech, Mr Hoogervorst looked over 2013 and concluded that it had been very productive and noted the many steps towards accomplishing the IASB's mission of bringing transparency to accounting around the world. To support his personal assessment, Mr Hoogervorst used the conclusions of the SEC’s 2012 Staff Report on IFRS as measure.
He discussed the SEC's staff conclusion that the IASB needed to deepen its cooperation with national standard-setters. Mr Hoogervorst pointed at the formation of the Accounting Standards Advisory Forum (ASAF) in February 2013 (with the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) being a member).
Next, Mr Hoogervorst turned to what he called "some scary estimates about the cost of transition to IFRS for US issuers" that were included in the SEC report. He pointed at the results of a survey on the costs of IFRS Transition in Canada that were published in July 2013. That survey showed that the costs of adoption of IFRS in Canada were planned for and expected — with most costs turning out to be the same or less than budgeted — the costs were significant but manageable.
As the SEC Report also touched upon a lack of clarity on the extent to which jurisdictions had actually adopted IFRSs, Mr Hoogervorst pointed at the jurisdiction profiles the IFRS Foundation is compiling — with the last 41 profiles published just yesterday. The profiles offer detailed information about the use of IFRSs in individual jurisdictions and have also revealed that more than 100 of the 122 countries surveyed have already adopted IFRS for most or all domestic listed companies.
As the last major development of 2013 that responds to a conclusion of the SEC report, Mr Hoogervorst mentioned the joint Statement of Cooperation of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) and the IFRS Foundation. This cooperation is aimed at ensuring that international standards are applied and enforced on a globally consistent basis.
The full text of Mr Hoogervorst's speech is available on the IASB's website.
FASB Chairman Russ Golden also spoke at the conference — his speech explored the FASB's potential post-convergence project agenda. See our 11 December 2013 story for more on his remarks.
