The Securities and Exchange Commission recently issued a concept release on foreign private issuer eligibility. Qualifying foreign companies listing in the US (termed “foreign private issuers”) receive various exemptions from the rules applying to domestic US companies, including the ability to file their statements in compliance with IFRS rather than with US GAAP. The concept…

Here’s yet another low point in Elon Musk-dom, as reported by CNN: Given the Tesla board’s demonstrated spinelessness, one expects the targets will be partly or wholly waived when Musk (as he will) fails to achieve them. But even if that’s not the case, the award represents a comprehensive failure of corporate governance and rationality,…

As part of its activities, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) organizes a forum of enforcers from 38 different European jurisdictions, all of whom carry out monitoring and review programs similar to those carried out here by the Canadian Securities Administrators. ESMA a while ago published some extracts from its confidential database of enforcement…

IFRIC recently considered the following fact pattern: The underlying staff paper observes: “there is a growing prevalence of battery storage and offtake arrangements…Such arrangements are common in the utility industry and are expected to increase significantly in the near future (as well as) outside of the utility industry as batteries form a critical part of…

We recently looked at Trump’s proposal to move US companies away from quarterly and toward semi-annual financial reporting… …noting along the way that Canadian regulators would no doubt move in the same direction, and that one almost hoped for them to get there first, if even just for the sake of not always seeming to…

Carney is trying to trick all of us with some accounting sleight of hand, opines the title of a recent National Post article. It’s written by Kim Moody. Here are some extracts: The article reminds us that under Canadian Public Sector Accounting Standards, tangible capital assets are non-financial assets having physical substance that That’s largely…

Here’s an overview of a recent enforcement action filed by the Ontario Securities Commission: The OSC lists seventeen different classes of order that it seeks from the capital markets tribunal (maybe that’s a tad too long a list for maximum punchiness) including that Purpose and its Chair/CEO have their registration or recognition under Ontario securities…

IFRIC recently discussed the classification of a foreign exchange difference from an intragroup monetary liability (or asset).  The fact pattern involves an entity that enters into a loan with its subsidiary; the entity and its subsidiary have different functional currencies. This intragroup loan is denominated in the functional currency of either the entity or its…

One of the many challenging aspects of standard-setting is the fine-tuning of a standard’s scope and application: that is, to what degree and under what circumstances affected entities should be given a break from some of the requirements. This is from the basis for conclusions to IFRS S1 General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information :…

As I’ve noted before, one of my bigger regrets is the time I spent on the cause of executive compensation disclosure, pretty much all of which was wasted: As I put it here nine years ago: Nothing has happened since then to change that assessment: you might conclude that companies actually take comfort in grossly…