Ending mandatory quarterly reporting, or: regulatory flexibility!

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has proposed rule and form amendments that would give public companies the option of filing semiannual reports in lieu of quarterly reports to meet their interim reporting obligations under the federal securities laws. Here’s the news release summary: “Regulatory flexibility” is one of those terms (like “public interest”) that…

End of the gravy train, or: born too late!

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…

The impact of changes in technology, or: the ice is melting!

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’s (natural?) next step on nature-related disclosures

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…

Today’s AI update: a race to the bottom!

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…

Ongoing costs of IFRS 16: let’s relieve the burden (but not too much)

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…

Too much disclosure (just ask the Mona Lisa!)

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…

Enforcing audit failures, or: foundational curiosity!

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…