Living Up to the Spirit of Narrative Reporting Guidance

Regulators often say financial reporting should tell a story about a company. Yet, the MD&A provided by some US companies often presents reporting that falls short of the spirit of the MD&A regulations. Until now, the consequences of this have been limited. Nonetheless, in an increasingly global capital market, US companies may find capital more expensive — and more difficult to attract — if their narrative reporting is less transparent than that provided by foreign competitors. (Read the CPA Journal article Living Up to the Spirit of Narrative Reporting Guidance: Improving MD&A by Looking to Global Best Practices.)

SEC Announces "21st Century Disclosure"

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has announced an ambitious effort to examine fundamental questions about the way it acquires information from public companies, mutual funds, brokers, and other regulated entities, and the way it makes that information available to investors and the markets. The study will review all existing SEC reporting requirements, with a special focus on needless redundancy. It will also consider ways to get the best real-time distribution of financial and narrative disclosure to investors. Finally, the study will examine how best to integrate public disclosure with the SEC's proposed new post-EDGAR architecture for investor search, assembly, and comparison of data. (View the SEC Press Release.)

SEC Advisory Committee on Improvements to Financial Reporting

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Advisory Committee on Improvements to Financial Reporting will meet on July 11, 2008. It is slated to vote on the recommendations contained in the Draft Final Report. According to its charter, the committee will terminate on August 2, 2008. (View the Agenda for the meeting and the Project webpage.)

CSA update on continuous disclosure obligations

The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) has published an unofficial consolidation of all amendments to National Instrument 51-102 Continuous Disclosure Obligations, its forms and its companion policy current to July 4, 2008. This document is for reference purposes only and is not an official statement of the law.

PwC corporate reporting blog

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) launched the PwC Corporate Reporting Blog last year in recognition of the growing importance and rapid changes in this area. The blog is aimed at those with responsibility for communicating and analyzing corporate performance. It is updated twice a month with topics on corporate reporting and issues that companies, investors and other interested parties should be aware of. Recent topics have included: thoughts on cash reporting in the current economic climate and insights on sustainability reporting as the credit crunch continues to influence behaviour.