ESMA publishes report on the activities of accounting enforcers and their findings within the EU in 2014

  • ESMA (European Securities and Markets Authority) (dark gray) Image

31 Mar 2015

All in all, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) sees improved transparency in European IFRS financial statements but believes that more information is needed on forbearance practices and impairment tests.

The report contains data from the examination approximately a quarter of the IFRS interim or annual financial statements of the 6400 issuers listed on EU regulated markets. The enforcers took action against 306 (22%) of the issuers subject to ex-post examinations, representing approximately 5% of issuers listed on regulated markets. The report also includes quantitative and qualitative results of the review of the 2013 interim and annual IFRS financial statements of 176 issuers in the EU and examines the level of compliance with IFRS in the areas identified as common enforcement priorities. Although the assessment showed improvements in the quality of application of IFRS, ESMA identified room for improvement where insufficient information was provided relating to forbearance practices in financial statements as well as the lack of disclosure of key assumptions when performing impairment tests for non-financial assets with an indefinite useful life.

In connection with the report, which is based on ESMA's 2014 Guidelines on enforcement of financial information, ESMA has also published a table of which EU jurisdictions comply, do not comply or intend to comply with the guidelines (including reasons for non-compliance).

The following information is available on the ESMA website:

Correction list for hyphenation

These words serve as exceptions. Once entered, they are only hyphenated at the specified hyphenation points. Each word should be on a separate line.