27 October 2015

ESMA: Quality improvement of disclosures in financial statements

ESMA stresses the need for clear and concise disclosures which are company specific and to avoid boiler-plate templates, highlighting that the size of annual reports often makes it hard for users to identify key information. Steven Maijoor, ESMA Chair, said: “We are urging listed companies to ensure that disclosures in IFRS financial statements are clearly focused on the relevant facts specific to the entity. Companies need to move away from “disclosure overload”. “We hope that the actions resulting from this statement, together with our annual statement on enforcement priorities, will contribute to increasing the relevance and consistency of financial information, and improve the information available to investors in Europe’s capital markets.”

The way in which IFRS disclosure requirements are drafted by the standard setter, applied by issuers, audited by auditors and enforced by enforcers are all indicated (though not necessarily with the same weight) as contributing to the growth in size of annual reports, mainly because there is too much emphasis on formal compliance rather than on the relevance of the information provided.

ESMA encourages all parties involved in preparing financial statements to contribute to improving the quality of disclosures: - issuers should focus on preparing disclosures which are relevant and material, making them as specific and readable as possible; - auditors should encourage issuers to focus on materiality and entity-specific information; and - European national enforcers should promote best practice amongst issuers and reflect on their enforcement practices in the light of this statement.

Full press release

Statement on improving the quality of disclosures

© ESMA