SEC Reaffirms Commitment to International Set of Standards

Submitted by Chris Gaetano on Wed, 02/24/2010 - 16:16

The Securities and Exchange Commission unanimously approved a 71-page statement reaffirming the agency’s support for a transition into a single, high quality set of international accounting standards. Commission staff will, as a result, begin to study how such a conversion would impact public companies and federal regulators.

Specifically, this means evaluating the independence of the international standard setters, making sure investors understand the implications of an international standard, studying the impact an international conversion would have on companies and regulators and, finally, determining the extent to which all parties involves are ready to change over.

Completing this study will pave the way for the commission to finally make a decision by the 2011 deadline outlined in its proposed IFRS roadmap by determining the primary challenges that will come with an IFRS conversion as well as proposed ways to overcome them.

Meanwhile, SEC Chair Mary Schapiro voiced support for US GAAP-IFRS convergence, another international synchronization project, saying that "[T]he convergence projects currently underway between the FASB and the International Accounting Standards Board, must first be successfully completed."

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