Sec: bisogna essere chiari per gli investitori

[FaGal]

U.S. corporations urged to write in 'plan english'
Fri May 6, 2005 08:44 AM ET

By Arindam Nag

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. accounting regulators urged corporations on Thursday to write their financial reports in "plain english" and shed complex jargon. And they did not mince their words.

"Please communicate in plain English. Disclose whatever will help investors understand what is happening," Scott Taub, deputy chief accountant at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) appealed to a room full of accountants at a conference at New York's Baruch College.

The SEC and the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), the U.S. body that writes accounting rules, have recently launched a campaign to simplify U.S. accounting literature, to remove some of the ambiguity that have often led investors to misinterpret companies' financial numbers.

Taub also urged companies to write footnotes, usually rich in valuable financial information, clearly and in a friendly manner.

Last week FASB launched the process of overhauling some of its complex accounting codes into a simplified version and issued an exposure draft titled 'The Hierarchy of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles' which would simplify the accounting standard setting process.

"It will help us to write more object oriented standards," FASB chairman Bob Herz told the same conference on Thursday.

U.S. GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) accounting is notorious for its complexity with experts often criticizing the ambiguity of some of its rules.

Recently, several companies had to restate their past financials on discovering that they and their auditors have been misinterpreting rules on accounting for property leases. Since then FASB has taken up a project to simplify lease accounting rules.

U.S. authorities have been under pressure to tighten accounting rules and financial disclosures since a series of corporate scandals hit corporate America over three years ago.

The collapse of energy trader Enron Corp (EONPQ.PK: Quote, Profile, Research) , Cable company Adelphia Communications Corp (ADELQ.PK: Quote, Profile, Research) and telecommunications company WorldCom (Now renamed MCI Inc (MCIP.O: Quote, Profile, Research) ) have put the spotlight on issues like off-balance transactions, revenue recognition and correct classification of cash flow in the statement of cash flows.

Carol Stacey, Chief Accountant at SEC's Division of Corporation Finance, who was also talking at the conference said the securities watchdog has been focusing on how clearly Fortune 500 companies have been explaining their 'revenue recognition' policies.

She said that while most of them have improved the way companies explained their revenue recognition policies, they are still relevant issues for non-Fortune 500 companies.

Taub said the SEC is also working on ways to help companies quantify what can be considered 'material' and what not. Often companies would refrain from revealing details of accounting corrections on grounds that they were not 'material' enough.

Current accounting rules have left it to the companies' discretion to decide what is material or not.
reuters

[FaGal]

L'articolo in questione pone un problema assai importante per la disclosure negli Usa. Mentre mi accingo a scrivere una traduzione chiara della normativa sugli emittenti in Usa (spero di finirla quanto prima), mi sono imbattuto nel "plain English" come requisito importante non solo e non tanto perchè la disclosure sia chiara agli investiri...bensì alla stessa Sec. Infatti qualsiasi operazione che venga condotta da soggetti Usa o che si assoggettino alla normativa Usa è oggetto di una attività, la cd. registration, che necessità in primis di un controllo contabile della documentazione. Contabilità intesa in senso più ampio che non in Italia, ossia come informativa sulla situazione della società. quasi a recuperare il sendo di "dare conto". Tra le richieste avanza te dalla Sec sul finire degli anni 90, proprio di fronte ad una complessità della normativa contabile, vi è stata la necessità di adottare un linguaggio tendenzialmente semplice e standardizzato.
Quindi, paradossalmente, uno degli aspetti più importanti è divenuto il controllo lessicale della documentazione.
A tal fine la Sec ha emanato un manuale che trovate al link sotto
http://www.sec.gov/pdf/handbook.pdf
http://www.sec.gov/news/extra/handbook.htm

[FaGal]

I costi di accounting (non per questo almeno non solamente) sono diventati elevatissimi per le società quotate. Le stesse big four della consulenza (Deloitte, KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), Ernst & Young ) traggono soprattutto "sostentamento" da questo genere di attività