SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce recently delivered a speech titled The Art and Science of Materiality. She illustrated the broad concept in the following remarkable fashion: The point of this remarkable soliloquy is that “regulators should not substitute their judgment for companies making materiality judgments in good faith (and) cannot short-circuit that company-specific judgment with one-size-fits-all…
The Ontario Securities Commission recently filed an Application for Enforcement Proceeding against KPMG LLP, for audit failures relating to KPMG’s 2019 and 2020 audits of four funds managed by Bridging Finance Inc. As the news release summarizes things: The application groups the allegations into four categories: It’s perhaps bleakly ironic that there was no requirement…
The IFRS Foundation recently published its 2025 Annual Report, bearing the title “Fit for the Future.” The financial highlights, as summarized in the news release: As always, it’s tempting to think that the IFRS Foundation’s annual report might be as close as humanly possible to a state-of-the-art document, and to read it from a correspondingly…
IFRIC recently issued the following tentative agenda decision (open for comment until May 29, 2026): Based on its findings, the Committee concluded that the matter described in the request doesn’t have widespread effect, and tentatively decided not to add a standard-setting project to the work plan. As summarized above, that conclusion probably appears obvious. The…
We’ve looked recently at several initiatives to reduce disclosure and compliance obligations for smaller public companies. SEC Chair Paul Atkins returned to the topic in a recent speech: We can no doubt expect some rule-making on that front soon. Getting in on the act, the UK government recently issued a statement: Regulation Action Plan Update,…
I came across a fascinating posting on X (or tweet, as I still call them): That’s from an individual in Nigeria posting as “Elijah” (@EJAkerele), whose timeline suggests an interest in extracting life lessons from financial and related matters (as well as in soccer and other sundry matters). I’ll lay on the table that I’m…
Is the SEC regulating for a pre-AI world? asks the CFA Institute’s Sandy Peters. That’s in an excellent recent article on cfo.com. Here are some extracts: The article provides ample evidence of Atkins’ penchant for sloganeering and lack of intellectual rigour: As we covered here, Atkins has also been taking shots at the IFRS Foundation,…
Canada’s audit regulator, the Canadian Public Accountability Board, recently published its first individual firm inspection reports. This is how the news release put it: The media pounced on the information, with Canadian Accountant contriving the silly headline that “Deloitte Canada comes out on top,” as if CPAB were scoring a weekend golf tournament. This is…
As we addressed here, Investors for Paris Compliance recently issued the report Accounting for the Canadian Oil & Gas Liabilities Gap. We looked last time at some of the report’s observations on financial statement disclosure. Another of its findings is “a potential massive overall liability gap based on a leaked Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) estimate…
The UK’s Financial Reporting Council recently issued the results of a thematic review on Reporting by the UK’s smaller listed companies. The review consisted of “a desktop review of 20 companies with year-ends between September 2024 and April 2025 operating in a range of market sectors.” These are the main findings noted: The FRC also…
The IASB has issued Amendments to the Fair Value Option for Investments in Associates and Joint Ventures, an exposure draft of proposed amendments to IAS 28, with comments to be received by April 20, 2026. Paragraphs 18–19 of IAS 28 permit an entity to elect to measure an investment in an associate or a joint…
Social Value International has launched a Global Survey on Investors’ Expectations of Company Accounts The survey explores “whether information reported in company accounts reflects the expectations of those who use them.” It’s open to “anyone whose financial decisions or future income may be affected by how companies perform.” As the news release puts it: The…
Investors for Paris Compliance recently issued the report Accounting for the Canadian Oil & Gas Liabilities Gap. The organization is “a shareholder advocacy organization that works to hold Canadian publicly-listed companies accountable to their net zero commitments.” The report concludes: The report examined the 15 largest Canadian oil and gas producers in this respect, finding:…
On the Forbes.com website, Ioannis Ioannou, Associate Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at London Business School, delivered a thoughtful and balanced assessment of the current state of ESG. Here are some extracts: Ioannou concludes: “What’s needed is a deeper recalibration. A shift away from ESG as a branding exercise, and toward ESG as a form…
Should Data Appear on Corporate Balance Sheets? asked the title of a recent Fortune article. It’s written by Shivaram Rajgopal. Here are some extracts: I’m not sure that even constitutes a rubber bullet, given that the “what gets measured gets managed” cliché ran out of steam a long time ago. In that regard, the article…
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