With the objective of providing issuers and users of financial statements with relevant information on the appropriate application of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has published the 21st Extract from its database of enforcement decisions taken by EU accounting enforcers.
This 21st Extract, which may be accessed here, includes, on an anonymous basis, three accounting enforcement decisions taken by IAASA.
EU accounting enforcers, including IAASA, examine the financial statements of issuers and consider whether they comply with IFRS and other applicable reporting requirements, including relevant national law. These accounting enforcers participate in the European Enforcer Coordination Sessions (EECS), a forum in which all EU/EEA accounting enforcers meet to share the reasons underpinning their accounting enforcement decisions. IAASA is an active member of the EECS and in this forum accounting enforcers also canvas other members’ views on issues currently being dealt with and identify issues which do not appear to be covered by financial reporting standards or which may be affected by conflicting interpretations. Matters arising from these discussions are often referred to standard setting or interpretive bodies such as the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) or the International Financial Reporting Standards Interpretations Committee (IFRS IC).
ESMA has developed a confidential database of enforcement decisions taken by individual EU accounting enforcers as a source of information to foster appropriate and consistent application of IFRS. All decisions submitted to the database are considered as appropriate for publication, unless:
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the decision deals with a simple accounting issue that, even having been considered a material infringement, does not in itself have any accounting merit;
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a particular EU accounting enforcer, on a grounded and justified basis, believes that the decision should not be published.