Louis Goss recently published an article titled The end of the accountancy gravy train. Here are some extracts: The article cites, among other things, the increased difficulty in becoming a salaried partner, increasing centralization that leaves many partners feeling like corporate employees (“the camaraderie of the old days has gone”), shortened partnership timelines shifting the…
In a post titled Skate to Where the Puck is Going, Armand Capisciolto, Chair of Canada’s Accounting Standards Board, recently set out some questions arising from ongoing changes in technology, relating to the Board’s ongoing research into how those changes are affecting the way financial information is consumed and accounting standards are applied: Areas he…
The ISSB recently announced a decision to propose requirements for nature-related disclosures in the form of an IFRS Practice Statement. This is from the news release: The ISSB had been discussing this project under the label “biodiversity, ecosystems and ecosystem services,” deciding only recently to change the title to “nature-related disclosures.” Nature-related risks and opportunities…
It feels recently as if I could devote this blog entirely to AI-related developments… …as if every new entry might anxiously immerse itself in the tussle of risk and opportunity, hopelessly trying to parse the significance of the latest piece of AI-related news or commentary (and there’s never a day without something new to chew…
The IASB recently discussed how to respond to stakeholder feedback on the Request for Information Post-implementation Review of IFRS 16 Leases. The staff paper indicates that many stakeholders commented on the ongoing costs for lessees of applying the IFRS 16 measurement requirenents. Among other feedback, they find “many aspects of the Standard very complex to apply and…
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…
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