The apolitical nature of standard-setting, or: push back now!

Armand Capisciolto, Chair of Canada’s Accounting Standards Board, recently returned to the topic of politics in standard-setting… Here are some extracts: As we covered here, Capisciolto had covered related matters just seven months earlier, noting then: Plainly the topic is on his mind (maybe even more than baseball!), and although he doesn’t specify what prompted…

More on WH Smith: robust remediation ahead!

We looked here at the following announcement by the retailer WH Smith PLC: The company announced at the time that the Board had “instructed Deloitte to undertake an independent and comprehensive review.” The company has now issued a summary of the review:  It announced the following “remediation actions”: At the same time, the company announced…

Reexamining foreign company rules, or: is it broke, should we fix it?

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…

On Musk’s compensation, or: super appreciated!

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,…

Disclosures in interim reports, or: things changed fast!

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…

Economic benefits from using a battery, or: super-charged!

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…

Toward semi-annual reporting (for some), or: right-sizing!

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…