CESR consultation on measuring equivalence Third Country GAAP and IAS/IFRS

21 October 2004

CESR has begun its work by setting out the concepts which will underlie its approach to the assessment of equivalence between certain third countries’ GAAP and IAS /IFRS.

Both the Prospectus Regulation and the Transparency Directive state that third country issuers will be required to prepare and present the financial statements that they publish on the basis of EU endorsed IAS/IFRS accounting standards or, on the basis of the third country’s national accounting standards if they have been declared as equivalent to IAS/IFRS.

Key proposals include:

that equivalence should not be interpreted as requiring the third country GAAP to be identical;

that CESR’s approach to assessing equivalence will be to limit its analysis to the difference commonly found in practice or known to be significant as such by the financial and audit community in Europe and in third countries.

Closing date of the consultation is 22 December 2004.
A hearing will be held on 23 November 2004.

Press release
Document

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