This Report provides an overview of the monitoring and enforcement of IFRS in Europe in the year to 31 December, 2011 through the activities of the European Enforcement Co-ordination Sessions (“EECS”) under the auspices of ESMA. The main objective of EECS is to co-ordinate the enforcement activities of member states in order to foster and maintain investor confidence.
Summarising the Report, ESMA notes that during 2011:
Approximately 1,950 financial reports were reviewed, of which 850 (2010: 1,000) were subject to a full review and 1,100 (2010: 700) to a partial review. These reviews resulted in approximately 588 (2010: 700) enforcement actions being taken by EU Member States’ national enforcers.
IAASA is an active member of the EECS and, during the period covered by the Report, IAASA:
- attended 7 of the 8 EECS plenary meetings held and actively participated in the consideration of issues brought to the EECS by other members;
- presented 8 enforcement decisions and 3 emerging cases to the plenary for discussion by members;
- actively participated in 2 meetings (2010:2) held with the IFRS Interpretations Committee (formerly known as IFRIC);
- presented its ‘Observations on Selected Financial Reporting Issues’ – Issuers’ Financial Years Ending on or after 31 December, 2010’ and 2010 Annual Report to the EECS plenary;
- supplied information for a number of ESMA/EECS publications and conducted surveys on the application of IFRS across the EU from an Irish perspective.
-
participated the following EECS sub-groups:
- Agenda Group;
- Sub-group on Materiality (Chaired by IAASA), whose objective is to analyse and identify the principles of a common approach to be considered by European accounting enforcers;
- Enforcement Methodology Group, which is charged by the plenary with the development of common review methodologies; and
- Enforcement Actions Group, which is charged by the plenary with the examination of enforcement actions taken by EU national enforcers with the aim of providing an overview and analysis of actions taken by national enforcers across the EU.