Press Turn Out for SEC Conference

Financial reporters from Bloomberg News, BNA, CFO Magazine, Compliance Week, Reuters and WebCPA were among those who turned out for yesterday’s SEC Conference. Several of them have already written about SEC chief accountant James L. Kroeker’s address. Below is a brief compendium of some of the coverage to-date.

Reuters reported that the SEC would prioritize refocusing on a proposed roadmap to move U.S. companies to international accounting standards in the coming months.

CFO Magazine reported that the IFRS roadmap may have seemed to be on hiatus of late, but Kroeker noted that the economic crisis has underscored the global nature of the economy and thus the importance of IFRS. “That's because the discussions related to the credit crunch were global in scope, as were the responses and potential solutions,” CFO reported.

WebCPA and others discussed the “race to the bottom” that Kroeker said he feared would occur if both U.S. and European banks continue to push for advantages under their own respective standards. “Many times that advantage is not any benefit to investors,” WebCPA quoted Kroeker as saying. “The advantage is that a financial institution may be able to portray themselves as being better off than they might actually be.”

BNA subscription-based publications Banking Daily, Banking Report, Daily Report for Executives, Securities Law Daily and Securities Regulation and Law Report reported that Steven Jacobs, SEC corporation finance associate chief accountant, touted an SEC Internet-based tool that collects questions from practitioners and the public; the agency aims to respond within 24 hours, BNA reported. The SEC aims to have one accountant “on call all day” to answer incoming questions from practitioners, according to BNA.

The Trusted Professional also covered the conference. Read a reporter’s blog here.