SEC Plans 7 July Roundtable on IFRS Preparedness and Regulatory Impacts

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has indicated that it will be holding a public roundtable next week to discuss the industry’s current state of preparedness for a move to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The 7 July event will include three panel discussions on the subject of potential accounting system changes, as the US regulatory community ponders moving from Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) to IFRS over the next few years.

The SEC kicked off research efforts into how best to tackle a change in accounting standards back in June last year and these discussions will play a part in communicating progress to the industry at large. To this end, the roundtable will feature three panels representing investors, smaller public companies, and regulators. The panel discussions will focus on topics such as investor understanding of IFRS, the impact on smaller public companies, and on the benefits and challenges of incorporating IFRS into US public company accounting.

Panellists will include representatives from pricing data vendors such as Standard and Poor’s and Moody’s, as well representatives from individual institutions such as Morgan Stanley and pension fund: California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS). In terms of relevance, the first panel discussion on levels of understanding regarding IFRS should be of interest to Reference Data Review readers, as well as the last panel on the regulatory environment, which includes panellists from the various US regulators.

The roundtable discussion will begin at 10am (EDT) at the SEC’s headquarters in Washington and will be available by webcast on the SEC website (which will also be archived for later viewing). Industry participants who wish to provide their views on the matters to be considered at the roundtable discussion may submit comments through one of the following methods: the SEC’s internet comment form or send an e-mail to rule-comments@sec.gov, and include File Number 4-600 on the subject line.