IASB Practically Begging the U.S. to Join Its New Accounting Standards Advisory Forum Now

Posted on by Caleb Newquist

No underwear? How about socks and shoes?Back in November the IASB came up with the idea to start a new cool club called the Accounting Standards Advisory Forum. It was going to include 12 elite members of accounting rule wonkery that would be at the forefront of global financial reporting. There was one major to joining the ASAF, however, and that was that the dozen members would have to "sign up to promoting a single set of global standards – code for no lobbying for national carve-outs – and respect the IASB's independence." 

The "single set of global standards" was commonly understood to be IFRS, but after hearing from interested parties that weren't necessarily hip to the idea, the IASB had a change of heart about that position, explaining that all the dozen members had to do was "agree to support and contribute to the foundation in its mission to develop a single set of high-quality, understandable, enforceable and globally accepted financial reporting standards." Standards that were, presumably, to be named later. "New IFRS" or IFRS Zero" or something.

But now, here we are, about three weeks later and the IASB has gone full on desperate, handing the U.S. a seat on the new ASAF:

IASB Chairman Hans Hoogervorst said on Monday membership rules will be changed by the time the new panel holds its first meeting in April so the world's biggest capital market can join. Michel Prada, chairman of the IASB's trustees, who will select panel members, said: "We very much hope our U.S. friends will join. We obviously need their contribution."
Oh? No more of this "It is also becoming more difficult to justify the representation of jurisdictions not applying IFRS in the IASB governance framework" talk? 
"Now we are in a sort of situation people are waiting and wondering what's next," Prada said. "The message we have to convey to our U.S. counterparts is that they have to help us get out of this situation and find a new way forward."
Well then. Maybe they'll think about it.
 

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Some French Guy Still Trying To Tell the U.S. What to Do Re: IFRS

Look, pal. We get that you’re anxious to slap these sets of accounting rules together like an IKEA ottoman. We also get that you and a certain knight want – nay – need the RW&B to be on board.

But we don’t know who you’re trying to boss here. See, we’re fairly certain you’d be speaking German if it wasn’t for us. Furthermore, in case you haven’t noticed, we like dragging things out until the last possible minute. Or just ignoring things until we have a giant mess on our hands and then we try cleaning up. Why would we treat IFRS any different?


We understand it’s a new century, millennium and you guys have a rough go in the World Cup but you can give it a rest.

We’ll get to IFRS when we’re good and ready and just because today is Bob Herz’s last day at the FASB doesn’t mean you need to get all anxious about it:

The US is due to make a decision about whether fully buy in to international standards in the latter half of next year. There has been speculation that the appointment of a new chairman for the US standard setter, FASB, could determine which way the world’s biggest economy will go on international standards.

In a speech yesterday to a conference organised by European financial think tank EUROFI, Barnier welcomed the involvement of the US in the Basel talks on financial regulation. But he added that the US should not part company with IFRS.

“It’s essential that we adopt the same prudential framework. I say this very simply, we cannot afford to take the risk of divergence in this area. And this is also the case for accounting standards,” he said.

EU chief urges US to buy into IFRS [Accountancy Age]

IASB Chairman: Convergence Is So Over

“The simple truth is that when you have two independent, highly competent boards, sometimes they will agree with each other, and other times they will not,” he said. “It’s not that one is right and the other wrong; they just reach different conclusions. The same would be true if I were to split my board in two and ask them to consider 10 projects. I doubt each smaller board would reach identical conclusions on all 10 projects, so convergence would require compromises to be made. Convergence therefore does not always result in the highest quality outcome. It has served its purpose, but now it is time to move on. [AT]