Europe

The European Commission is expected to publish new proposals for corporate governance reform next month, which could lead to important legal changes across the trading bloc’s 27 member states. The proposals focus on improving governance standards in the financial sector. They will be based on a report received by the Commission on the sector’s governance […]

Many European banks and insurance companies are failing to comply with mandatory disclosure rules relating to financial instruments, according to the Committee of European Securities Regulators (CESR). CESR, which advises the European Commission on securities regulation, analyzed compliance with the disclosure rules in IFRS 7 – Financial Instruments: Disclosures. It found that a significant minority […]

The European Commission has refused to adopt a new standard on financial assets published by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). IASB released its new standard, “IFRS 9 Financial Instruments,” on November 12 after calls from the G20 nations to simplify accounting in this area, which had been exposed during last year’s financial crisis. But […]

Leaders of the G20 nations agreed on a global approach to the governance of executive pay in the financial sector at their recent summit in Pittsburgh, but that does not mean compliance professionals can ignore the national-level requirements that many countries are introducing, according to law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. Some observers have criticized the […]

The European Commission has excluded the U.S. from a deal that will allow audit oversight bodies operating inside the European Union to share their working papers with professional supervisors in other countries. The deal will allow European audit oversight bodies to share information with their peers in Canada, Japan, and Switzerland, but not those in […]

UK regulator the Financial Services Authority has published guidance aimed at making it easier for shareholders to push companies to raise their governance standards. Institutional shareholders have been accused of not challenging companies about their corporate governance practices in the run up to the financial crisis. But they in turn have argued that gray areas […]

Leaders of the G20 nations must underline their commitment to a single set of global accounting standards when they meet in Pittsburgh this September, or unease about the future of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) will grow, according to a policy paper from the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants. The London-based body warned that “political […]

The International Accounting Standards Board should abandon its efforts to converge global reporting rules with U.S. accounting standards, and focus instead on making its standards better and less complex, according to a body that speaks for the European accounting profession. FEE (the Federation of European Accountants) says it supported International Financial Reporting Standards and believed […]