Abstract

As should be clear from a perusal of the other contributions in this volume, the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) has undoubtedly become one of the key international actors in financial reporting regulation. It is hardly possible to discuss any contemporary issue in financial accounting and financial reporting without reference to the IASB and its International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). But the IASB, which began operations in 2001, could not have obtained this degree of recognition without the foundations laid by its predecessor body, the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC). A quarter-century after its founding in 1973, the steady work of the IASC resulted in the fairly complete body of International Accounting Standards (IAS), which could stand comparison with national standards in most developed countries. By 2000, IAS had obtained a distinct foothold in financial reporting practice, not only because several national standard setters were converging their national standards with IAS, but also because a few hundred listed companies, mainly but not exclusively in Europe, had adopted IAS directly in the hope of improving their access to international capital markets. But with all due recognition of the achievements of the IASC, it may be said that after the IASB took over from the IASC the significance of IAS (known since 2001 as IFRS) increased to entirely new levels, and also probably far beyond what most participants and observers expected at the time the IASB came into being.