The segmental reporting standard (IFRS 8) has prompted tension between investors and corporate governance lobbyists on one side, and the International Accounting Standards Boards on the other, as the standard setter keenly pushes ahead with the standard.

It’s intriguing and yet reassuring that standards have become hotly contested. The fact that a debate could reach the exalted levels of national presidents, or be the subject for lobbying a European commissioner stresses their importance. But on IFRS 8 everyone seems a little bit tarnished by the efforts to sort it out.

Investors who claim it puts too much power in the hands of management (executives) seemed to enter the debate very late on. The IASB could be viewed as not having listened carefully and the European Commission moves too slowly to offer anyone the prompt resolution that is required.

But as the debate enters its final stages the investors are at risk of sacrificing a much greater goal, if they persist with their insistence that the European Commission rejects IFRS 8. Firstly, it undermines the idea of the whole planet working on IFRS because Europe would have jumped ship when it should be sticking to the project. Secondly, it endangers the convergence project in which the US comes over to IFRS. In return for that, the IASB has accepted a US lead on IFRS 8. A quid pro quo? Possibly, but almost certainly for a greater good.

But there’s another question. Why should the EC accept direct petitions for intervention when it has the IASB to offer recommendations? It might as well create a new department of its own and pay Sir David Tweedie off. So far there’s no need for that.