Round table meetings on consolidation

The IASB plans to hold a series of round-table meetings with interested parties on consolidation. The first meeting will take place on Wednesday 17 September 2008 in London, UK.

In response to a recommendation made in the report of the Financial Stability Forum on Enhancing Market and Institutional Resilience, the IASB has decided to accelerate its Consolidation project by moving straight to an exposure draft.

The objective of the round tables is to facilitate progress on the project by obtaining public comment at an early stage of the project. The views received in the round table discussions are expected to help the IASB in shaping its forthcoming proposals for creating a single IFRS on consolidation to replace IAS 27 Consolidated and Separate Financial Statements and SIC-12 Consolidation - Special Purpose Entities.

The IASB envisages publishing an exposure draft for public comment in the fourth quarter of 2008.

An initial staff draft of the exposure draft was presented to the IASB at its meeting in July and was published on the Website as part of the observer notes for that meeting. As a basis for the round table discussions an updated version of the staff working draft will be published shortly before the first round table meeting.

Participants in the first round table will be drawn from members of the IASB’s advisory groups.

The IASB welcomes observers to listen to the discussion at the round table on 17 September (which will also be broadcast on the Internet). To attend you will need to register. Details of the location and time will be published on the Website and sent to observers by email.

A second round table will be held at the end of September in North America. Further details will be published in due course.

Additional round tables

The IASB also plans to hold additional round tables, if there is sufficient public interest. Participation in those round tables would be open to interested parties with relevant technical experience.

You can register your interest in attending the round tables now and will be notified when the timing and the location have been confirmed.

To register your interest, please send an email to vblackburn@iasb.org (ref: round table consolidation) with the following details:

• Name
• Company name
• Occupation
• Country

Please note that, although we shall aim to admit every interested party to the round tables, capacity constraints will mean that we may not be able to accommodate all those who wish to attend.