CFOs urge SEC to abandon IFRS proposal

Chief financial officers are pushing for new chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mary Schapiro, to drop the much-anticipated IFRS project.

The move comes just eight months after former SEC chairman, Christopher Cox, proposed to move all publicly traded US companies to international financial reporting standards by 2016, according to cfo.com

The roadmap was first proposed by Cox just before the Lehman Brothers collapse in September last year, but details of the plan weren't formally released until last November.

Almost 40 finance executives who have commented on the SEC's IFRS proposal are concerned about the the cost of switching accounting systems.

Patrick Mulva, controller for ExxonMobil, said: 'Conversion to IFRS could lead to confusion and reduced marketplace confidence in financial statements at a time when confidence in the US financial markets is already low.'

William Stocker, an audit and accounting partner at Marks Paneth & Shron said: 'I don't get the impression that the new administration has made IFRS a priority in the same way the last administration did.'

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