The next meeting of the Financial Crisis Advisory Group is scheduled for March 5 as accounting leaders and regulators sort out issues related to the recession.
Among the participants will be representatives from the Financial Accounting Standards Board and other international accounting standard-setters. They will be meeting at Baruch College in New York. On the agenda are a discussion of some of the topics left over from the group’s Feb. 13 meeting, including possible approaches to improvement and simplification of accounting and reporting of financial instruments, and questions about fair value accounting. Those include whether it is appropriate and useful to report gains or losses from fair value changes in a reporting entity’s own indebtedness, and what additional guidance, if any, is needed in the area of determining fair value.
The group is also scheduled to discuss off-balance-sheet items, including what are the best ways to provide useful information on securitizations and other structured entities. The group is also set to discuss what principles should determine whether a securitization or other structured entity is included in the balance sheet of a sponsoring entity assuming that a consolidation or de-recognition approach is used.
Another topic will be governance and due process for standard-setters. The group plans to discuss how oversight should be exercised over accounting standard-setters on a national or international basis to ensure the appropriate independence, accountability, and transparency in the standard-setting process. They also plan to consider which criteria accounting standard-setters should consider in balancing the need for resolving an emergency issue on a timely basis, and the need for active engagement from constituents through due process.
For more information on the meeting, visit www.fasb.org.
