Not-for-profit groups launch IFRS campaign

An unprecedented campaign, which will see some of the country's biggest charities lobby against accounting standards for the first time, has been launched against an international standard that they claim will drastically reduce the transparency of company accounts.

The 75 charities, which include Save the Children, Global Witness, CAFOD and the International League for Human Rights, fear that the standard on segmental reporting would reduce the ability of the general public to see what companies are doing in certain countries.

Co-ordinated by the Publish What You Pay Coalition, the charities want to hold on to the current geographical reporting model.

'Accountability of corporations is vital if we're to hold governments to account for what they do with the cash they receive,' said Henry Parham, the group's international co-ordinator. 'That’s why we're asking for disclosure of information that is vital for the stakeholders of all corporations.'

'There has never been such a letterwriting campaign before for the IASB,' said Richard Murphy, the accountant responsible for authoring the group’s submission to the IASB. 'Any stakeholder, apart from a financial analyst, would be interested in the information we are asking for.'

The coalition wants to know where a company operates, revenues in that country on an intra-group and third-party basis, how much value it adds to the local economy, its profits and how much tax it pays.

Murphy argued that multinational companies already know this information for tax purposes, so it would not be an additional burden.

Despite the size of the lobby group, it could still struggle to influence the IASB, which is notorious for sticking to its guns.

Elizabeth Hickey, director of technical activities at the IASB, said: 'I don't understand the concern, because there will be presentation of segmental information, which may involve geographical representation.'

It is expected the matter will be discussed at the IASB's July board meetin g.