SEC Announces Panelists for March 6 Roundtable on IFRS Roadmap

March 2, 2007

FEI Summary

On Fri. March 2, 2007, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced the panelists for its March 6 panel on implementation of the “Roadmap” to considering removal of the reconciliation requirements for foreign registrants that file in the U.S. under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The IFRS Roadmap was first outlined by then-SEC Chief Accountant Don Nicolaisen in April of 2005 here.

Opening remarks at the March 6 SEC roundtable, to be webcast here,  will be provided by SEC Chairman Christopher Cox and European Union (EU) Internal Markets Commissioner Charlie McCreevy.  McCreevy wrote an OpEd article that appeared in the March 2 edition of The Wall Street Journal, entitled “Capital Marketplace.” The article outlines some of McCreevy’s views on progress made to date on global regulatory cooperation, including the IFRS Roadmap, Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 implementation and foreign deregistration requirements in the U.S.

However, McCreevy notes in the conclusion to his OpEd, “We need to do more… as trans-Atlantic markets further integrate.” Specifically, he notes, ”[W]e have to sift up a gear and chart a route to recognize each other’s audit oversight bodies, implement the Basel II banking accord in a way that benefits banks and customers on both sides, and move to a risk-based system of reinsurance regulation that benefits homeowners and policyholders alike.”  

Links to additional information on convergence can be found in the March 2 post in FEI’s Financial Reporting Blog: “Convergence: A Capital Idea.”

Prepared March 5, 2007 by Edith Orenstein eorenstein@FinancialExecutives.org, Director, Technical Policy Analysis, Financial Executives International (FEI). This summary does not contain FEI opinion unless specifically noted above.