EC to meet charities over segments row

Publish What You Pay, the set-up masterminded by tax campaigner Richard Murphy, has been invited to Brussels to discuss the proposals.

The moves arise amid the extraordinary furore over the segmental reporting standard IFRS 8. Rather than adopt the country reporting idea, the IASB went for ‘management’ reports, which critics say gives carte blanche to management to do what they want.

Murphy said: ‘They seem to be taking on board governing issues, and specifically the question of reporting by a geographical basis.The EC is showing a strong awareness of the reasons people are saying we don’t want IFRS 8.’

The ASB is also currently lobbying the EC to adopt the management reporting approach, as Brussels takes centre stage in one of the biggest standards rows of recent years.

Ian Mackintosh, chairman of the ASB, wrote to the EC this week urging the adoption of the standard.

His letter to the EC states that the signatories to the letter back the move to adopt IFRS 8 in the EU.

The EC letter carefully alludes to the fact that the group that signed it was unrepresentative of all the opinions in the UK, and additionally refers to ‘differing views’ and ‘wider tensions’.

Those who approved adoption included Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG, the Financial Services Authority, the ASB, Unilever, The Hundred Group, the Quoted Companies Alliance and the ICAEW.

Investors have not signed the letter, being broadly critical of the standard.

Murphy’s battle with the IASB has been particularly bitter, as the standard setter refused to allow the group to make representation. When it did – in September last year – it was too late to have any impact on the IASB’s consultation process.

Investors wrote to the EC, which then, on the brink of adopting IFRS 8, deferred adoption of the standard.

While the IASB has defended itself as having followed due process in consulting on the IFRS 8 row, the EC has gone further in sending out a consultation document to investors and the NGOs, specifically probing concerns raised by these groups.