Poor Sir David Tweedie. The head of the International Accounting Standards Board has been scurrying around the world for the past few months trying to hammer out an agreement on new rules for the treatment of financial instruments.
The G20 had asked for a review in the wake of the financial crisis, amid concerns that the existing rules had made things worse. Some banks, particularly in Europe, blamed the rules for exaggerating their losses because of the requirement to value assets at market prices.
Yesterday the IASB issued its new guidance, which British accountants said was a vast improvement and addressed all the concerns raised in the consultation. Moreover, the IASB has managed to meet the deadline so the new rules could be applied to companies’ next set of accounts.
But yesterday Brussels said “non”. The European Commission is delaying its endorsement, which is required for the changes to be applied in Europe.
The belief in the City is that this is political posturing led by the French, and, to a lesser extent, the Germans.
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The French are said to have some technical objections to the new rules, but mostly it comes down to their politicians being dead against rules for European companies being set by a body that is unaccountable and, worse still, based in London.
It hardly bodes well for international agreement on other thorny regulatory issues.