The Public Company Accounting Oversight Boards Standing Advisory Group will be meeting Wednesday and Thursday to discuss the controversial issue of auditing fair value measurements.
Fair value has proven to be a thorny matter for both the Financial Accounting Standards Board and its global counterpart, the International Accounting Standards Board. The PCAOB advisory group plans to talk about how to audit such measurements in the wake of the financial crisis, as well as using the work of specialists who have been hired by companies to help make the fair value assessments.
The meeting could be an important step in the process of changing the PCAOBs existing fair value standards. The staff believes that a standards-setting project to revise its existing standards on auditing fair value measurements and using the work of a specialist may be appropriate for a number of reasons, said a
Banks and other financial institutions have pressured the accounting standard-setters to revise their fair value standards as they seek to avoid putting assets on their balance sheets that have declined steeply in value. Auditors too have come under pressure to conform to those revised standards or apply the loosest interpretation possible to give companies the greatest leeway to value their assets. But as the standards for auditing also undergo a shift, its going to become harder to tell whats a real standard, and whats only the standard of the moment.
