All articles by Stephen Bouvier – Page 25
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Features
Happy Honecker: censorship lives
In the former East Germany, the Honecker regime cunningly blanked-out maps west of Berlin in a bid to foil escapes. This is an approach that the IASB’s pension team appears to have taken literally. An example is Paragraph 50 of the observer notes for the board’s December 2007 discussions: “A ...
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News
Criticism of IASB shifts to its corporate structure
[16:30 CEST 07-10] GLOBAL - Swiss pharmaceutical and diagnostics giant Roche has slammed proposals by the IASB's parent body, the International Accounting Standards Committee Foundation, to create a seven-member oversight body comprised mainly of securities regulators to oversee the activities of the IASCF's trustees.
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NewsNew face to take on IASB pensions review
[16:30 CEST 26-09] GLOBAL - The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) has moved to reassure constituents its pensions accounting project has adequate staffing following the departure last week of project team member Jenny Lee.
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Features
Exceptions to the rule
The message from Anne McGeachin on international financial reporting standards (IFRS) was clear: "The IFRS must be applicable worldwide, and we therefore cannot go around exempting jurisdictions.
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News
IASB proposals could force status change for BASF pensions
[14:45 CEST 15-09] GERMANY - German multinational BASF AG has revealed around 95% of its active-member pension obligation will shift to the IASB's proposed fair value pension measure, if the standard-setter's recently-published proposals to reform pension accounting become GAAP.
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NewsGerman pensions face 'near-full value' shift under IASB reform
[15:45 CEST 10-06] GERMANY - Pension funds and consultants have warned German pension funds will face a major funding upheaval under the International Accounting Standards Board's (IASB) proposed reforms to pensions accounting.
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News
IASB hints at watering down of pensions review
[16:20 CEST 05-06] GLOBAL - The International Accounting Standards Board could be on the verge of scaling back the scope of its Phase I project to address pensions accounting.
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Features
Dead man walking
Question: What starts with ‘P’ and ends in chaos? Answer: The International Accounting Standards Board’s Phase I pensions accounting project. It has all been a bad dream. That was the message from the 21 April joint board meeting in London between the IASB and the US Financial Accounting Standards. At ...
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Features
Varying value of the same promise
Charles Rodgers, a London-based pensions consultant at Watson Wyatt, has a problem: the long-awaited International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) due process discussion document on pensions accounting. His issue? The board’s new contribution-based promise definition and its proposal that the world’s bean counters should account for pension promises according to how ...
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News
IASB may scale back pensions accounting project
[12:30 CEST 23-04] GLOBAL - The future of the International Accounting Standards Boards' due process discussion document on pensions accounting is in doubt, following public comments by IASB research director Wayne Upton.
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Features
What price fair value?
It is a given that any change to pensions accounting will inevitably produce earnings volatility. A Georgia Tech research team led by Dr Charles W. Mulford has recently attempted to answer the question: by how much? Starting with an analysis of “changes to the balance sheet and its effects on ...
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News
Career-average schemes hit by IASB proposals
[16:30 CET 27-03] GLOBAL - Career-average defined-benefit pension plans face substantial upheaval if the International Accounting Standards Board implements its new proposed definition of contribution-based pension plans, two leading pensions consultants have warned.
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Features
Not another dagger?
The recent paper from the UK Accounting Standards Board (ASB) was described by Aon Consulting as “another dagger in the side of final salary pensions”. But when is a dagger not a dagger? Apparently, when an organisation or even an individual does something to draw attention to the increasingly unsustainable ...
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Features
Shifting the goal posts
The scope of IASB’s phase I pensions accounting project has widened since it was announced in July 2006. Stephen Bouvier trawled through the official sound archives to set the record straight
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Features
IASB mulls over average salary
“We can’t pretend that we’re not doing something that we’re doing,” Mary Barth told her fellow IASB members on 19 September. “I think we have to be honest with the world about what we’re doing as opposed to pretending that we are not changing things when we are.”The bad news ...
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Features
Smoothing comes under scrutiny
If the International Accounting Standards Board was looking for praise of its decision to tackle pensions accounting, it found it among members of its recently formed pensions working group at its inaugural 5 June meeting. Although a minority warned the board against creating an era of constant upheaval in pensions ...
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Features
Beyond the headlines
Pension deficit figures make headline news. But how useful is the accounting valuation of a defined-benefit plan’s funding status in assessing whether a plan sponsor can match its obligations? Stephen Bouvier speaks to leading preparers and consultants in a bid to find out
