I came across a highly interesting recent think-piece written by Colin Mayer, entitled ESG is Dead, Be True and Fair Instead Here are some extracts: In part, that points toward the limitations of current accounting and reporting standards, for example in not recognizing certain categories of intangible assets and related costs. Mayer doesn’t dwell on…

A recent IFRIC agenda decision addressed the following fact pattern: Regarding that last point, you’ll recall that IFRIC previously determined that if an entity has such a constructive or legal obligation, it considers the criteria in IAS 37.14 in determining whether it recognizes a provision for the costs of fulfilling that obligation, separately assessing whether…

At its May meeting, the IASB discussed its project on the Statement of Cash Flows and Related Matters. Here are some of the decisions it took, as summarized in the IASB Update: The IASB decided that it will assess potential ways to improve: The IASB decided it will not: Of course, some of those items…

An interesting article in Canadian Accountant ponders Why accountants should spend less time on the numbers and more time explaining the results. Written by Philip Maguire, it notes that “The combination of historical and current valuation requirements in the balance sheet, income statement and statement of cash flows have resulted in financial statements that are…

The Ontario Securities Commission recently released staff research that analyzes the frequency and sentiment of Canadian listed issuers’ references to Artificial Intelligence (AI) in their financial disclosures. Here’s how the OSC’s news release summed it up: As indicated above, one of the more interesting aspects of the exercise is that it itself made use of AI: The…

We recently looked at the current moves in the United States toward eliminating the audit regulator, the Public Company Auditing Oversight Board… And as if that wasn’t enough, Francine McKenna recently posted the following on LinkedIn: She harked back to something she’d written in January 2019: Although one might react to that with intuitive horror,…

The Globe and Mail recently published an opinion piece titled Too long has the Toronto Stock Exchange been shrunken and battered. No more. It’s written by Bryce Tingle. Here are some extracts: Plenty of that can be debated of course – in general, the notion of the chaotic U.S. markets as being self-evidently superior seems…

We recently looked at a think-piece on the virtue of simplicity and concision in financial reporting… …and to extend that train of thought, I came across an article titled Less is More in Standard-Setting, written by Peter Reilly , a non-executive director at the UK Endorsement Board. Here are some extracts: Well yes, but getting…

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 last year published some extracts from its confidential database of enforcement decisions…

Let’s dip once more into the Inside Standard Setting blog of Armand Capisciolto, Chair of Canada’s Accounting Standards Board, and a recent post titled International Relationships Matter!: The references there are to accounting standard setting, this being the blog’s focus, but it could also be a tacit acknowledgement that disclosure-related standard setting is relatively more…