Here are some extracts from the keynote speech at the recent IFRS Foundation conference, by Saker Nusseibeh, CEO of Federated Hermes Limited

• I am told there are some fifty-three jurisdictions represented today in this room and online, including standard setters, regulators and academics. – Which makes you, collectively, the custodians of something I have depended upon for my entire professional life: the language in which companies tell investors the truth. – And it is truth I want to talk about today.– My title – “The Whole Truth” – is borrowed, of course, from the courtroom oath: to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. – Notice that the oath has three parts. It is not enough that what a witness says is accurate. It must also be complete. – A true statement that omits what matters, can mislead just as surely as a false one. – I want to suggest to you this morning that corporate reporting has, for most of my career, passed the first test and has work to do on the second. – Our report and accounts have told the truth. They have, at times, not told the whole truth.

He returns to the theme at the end:

• The truth: that was the achievement of the first twenty-five years of the IASB – a single, rigorous, global language of financial reporting, written for investors. – The whole truth: that is the work of the next twenty-five – sustainability and financial information, connected and ultimately integrated, so that a report and accounts tells the complete story of how a company creates wealth, and for how long. – And nothing but the truth: information that is relevant, decision-useful and honest – nothing performative, nothing for show.

But when I came across the above, I couldn’t help thinking about the following portion of Louis CK’s recent stand-up special Ridiculous (on Netflix):

• It’s fascinating when you watch court stuff on TV because they have a very scientific way to make sure that you’re gonna tell the truth. They make you do this. It’s the whole thing. I don’t know why this is so important, but you must do it. They say “Raise your right hand,” and you go like this (raises his hand in the standard courtroom manner). And everybody goes, “Oh fuck, he’s gonna really tell. Holy shit. No, it’s his right hand, look.” Everybody does it just like this. They don’t tell you how to do it. They just say, “Raise your right hand.” You could do it like this, like (slowly and exaggeratedly raises right hand first as if tentatively catching rain and then as if posing for a heroic sculpture). Then you have to take an oath. The guy says the oath, and then you just go, “Yeah, sure.” Because you have to say yes. Like, what does it prove if you say yes to an oath that you’re not allowed to say no to? You’re not allowed to say no. Nobody gets to go, “No, I’m not doing that.” And then the judge is like, “OK, so this one’s gonna lie. Does everybody understand? This one is a liar. Go right ahead sir.” The oath is really intense. They say, “Do you swear to tell the truth?” Which, I think we’re done, right? That’s enough. But there’s two more parts. The next one is, “The whole truth.” (Looks suitably bemused). But then what about this one? “And nothing but the truth.” What is that? Like, “Yeah and don’t fucking yap, yap, yap, yap, yap.” They don’t want you to be like, “I saw him and he had a gun. And also I’m just tired today. I don’t know what’s going on with me. I should have had a matcha.”

Well, of course, Nusseibeh is not trying to be CK-level funny (although hopefully his address landed a bit lighter on the audience’s ears than it reads on the page). But CK’s engagement with the theatricality and artifice of the oath are rather helpful in showing up the under-examined superficiality of the speech’s assertions. That is: to state that financial statements, with all their necessary reliance on conventions and choices and limitations and judgments, have ever told “the truth,” seems profoundly wrong-headed. They may provide a “view” which is in its way “true,” but even a simple set of financial statements demands a degree of reader engagement and interrogation that goes beyond simply passively absorbing “truth.” And then, admirable as the ISSB’s efforts may be, their work can’t possibly claim to provide the (or even a) “whole truth,” if only because entities don’t have such godlike knowledge even regarding their own complexities, prospects and exposures.

And as for “nothing but the truth,” well, you can’t begrudge the designers of a glossy annual report a reasonable amount of self-promotional showmanship. I do have a message though for those individuals, and for all preparers: please, whatever you do, just don’t fucking yap, yap, yap, yap, yap…

The opinions expressed are solely those of the author.