International GAAP 2013: Generally Accepted Accounting Principles under International Financial Reporting Standards

Preface

Barely a year after the appointment of Hans Hoogervorst as its chairman, the IASB has signalled that the era of convergence between IFRS and US GAAP – a key objective of the IASB for a decade – is to end. The immediate catalyst for this may have been the inability of the IASB and FASB to agree a common approach for dealing with the impairment of financial instruments, but there were clearly deeper underlying causes. This turn of events inevitably concerns those of the IASB’s constituents, like ourselves, who support the goal of a single set of high-quality and truly global standards for financial reporting. However, whilst the IASB’s decision to abandon the quest for short-term convergence is undoubtedly of great, and more than merely symbolic, significance, we remain of the view that convergence over the longer term is not merely desirable but possible, if not inevitable.

Some of the recent rhetoric from the IASB and its constituents has been – at least by the standards of the staid world of financial regulation – forthright and colourful. There is a view among some of the IASB’s constituents that the emphasis on convergence has caused unacceptable delays in finalising some IASB projects. There is a more general frustration in some quarters, particularly the European Union, that the US should retain significant influence over the IFRS standard-setting process, but without as yet signalling whether, when and to what extent, it will adopt IFRS. For its part, the US has its ...