Financial regulators from around the world are setting up a monitoring group that will work with international accounting standards-setters.
Representatives of the International Organization of Securities Commissions, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the European Commission and the Japan Financial Services Agency will engage in roundtable discussions Thursday organized by the International Accounting Standards Committee Foundation with the goal of creating an IASCF Monitoring Group. The IASCF is the private foundation that provides public interest oversight of the International Accounting Standards Board, which promulgates International Financial Reporting Standards.
While the SEC has long worked with the Financial Accounting Standards Board on U.S. generally accepted accounting principles, the convergence with IFRS in the U.S. and elsewhere has left securities regulators around the world with questions about how they will interact with the IASB. The IASCF Monitoring Group could offer such a forum.
"We are pleased at the progress being made in advancing interaction between securities authorities and the IASCF," said SEC Chairman Christopher Cox (pictured), IOSCO Executive Committee Chairperson Jane Diplock, Financial Services Agency of Japan Commissioner Takafumi Sato, and European Internal Market and Services Commissioner Charlie McCreevy in a joint statement. "The increased adoption and use of IFRS in capital markets around the world necessitates strengthening the accountability of the foundation to the authorities responsible for setting financial disclosure requirements by public companies."
The monitoring group is expected to create a mechanism for interaction between securities authorities and the IASCF that approximates the historical relationship between securities authorities and national standard-setters.
As part of the contemplated change, the IASCF Monitoring Group would participate in the selection and approval of IASCF trustees, and the IASCF trustees would regularly report to the IASCF Monitoring Group on their oversight of the IASB. The IASCF Monitoring Group's role will be designed to ensure the independence of the IASB, while reinforcing the public interest oversight provided by the IASCF trustees.
