Former SEC commissioner Harvey Goldschmid has been appointed to succeed one of the retiring trustees of the International Accounting Standards Committee Foundation, the organization that oversees the International Accounting Standards Board.

Harvey Goldschmid

Goldschmid is a law professor at Columbia University and he recently co-chaired the Financial Crisis Advisory Group, which released a report in July that concluded accounting standards were not to blame for the economic crisis. Another retiring trustee will be replaced by Yves-Thibault de Silguy, the chairman of the French construction giant Vinci and a former member of the European Commission responsible for economic, monetary and financial affairs.

The appointments followed a public international search and approval of the appointments by the Monitoring Board.  The appointments will fill vacancies that will arise at the end of the year when Bertrand Collomb of France and Philip Laskawy of the U.S. retire as trustees because they are not eligible for reappointment.  De Silguy and Goldschmid have each been appointed for a renewable term of three years starting on Jan. 1, 2010. 

By appointing one trustee from Europe and one trustee from North America, the IASC Foundation trustees are trying to maintain the geographical representation in the group of Trustees, as required by the organization’s constitution.  The trustees expect to announce soon a successor from Europe for Alicja Kornasiewicz, a retiring trustee from Poland.