Investors call on EC to drop more changes to fair value reporting

Corporate Reporting Users Forum calls on European Commission to drop proposals for further IAS39 carve-outs

Written by Gavin Hinks

A senior group of investors and analysts has written an open letter to the European Commission insisting that there be no further carve-outs to the controversial accounting IAS39 during a meeting to be held in Brussels today.

The letter, published in the FT today, says: ‘Now especially, investors need comparability and transparency, not further uncertainty and inconsistency.’

Advertisement

Signed, among others, by Nick Anderson, head of research at Insight Investment and Peter Elwin, head of accounting and valuation research at Cazenove, the names on the letter are all from the Corporate Reporting Users Forum (CRUF), a pan European grouping of investment analysts.

The Commission has already endorsed changed made to international standards that bring them into line with US GAAP. But the agenda at today’s meeting tabled much broader changes that would allow all classes of financials instrument to be reclassified and therefore duck the application of fair value accounting.

The FT letter says that CRUF believes ‘that further changes, which go beyond aligning IFRS with US GAAP, risk severely undermining the confidence users have in the accounts produced by European companies.’

Yesterday, the Investment Management Association released a statement saying the proposed changes could threaten transparency and comparability.

further changes, which go beyond aligning IFRS with US GAAP, risk severely undermining the confidence users have in the accounts produced by European companies

Coorporate Reporting Users Forum 

Last week JP Morgan released a paper signalling its disappointment with IASB changes but also stating its objection to further reform of the standards.

  • Have your say
  • Send to a friend
  • Share
  • Print

Comments

White papers

Related jobs

More Accounting jobs

Spotlight

The Top 50 +50 survey 2009

All the news, views and analysis on our 2009 Top...

Elizabeth Rumsey, Virgin Galactic's FD

Profile: Elizabeth Rumsey, Virgin Galactic's FD

While Richard Branson and his Virgin Galactic team chase the...

How To guides

The archive of Accountancy Age's How To guides

Find your next job

Find your next job
Salary Checker

Job of the week

More finance jobs

Newsletters

Sign up here for the very latest news delivered to your inbox. Choose from the following options:

Your next job

Have your say

Should chancellor Alistair Darling lose his job for claiming for tax advice?
Yes
No

Advertisement

Search white papers

Search white papers

Advertisement

Advertisement