About the Financial Crisis Advisory Group (FCAG)
The Financial Crisis Advisory Group was formed at the request of the International Accounting Standards Board (the Board) and the US Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) to consider financial reporting issues arising from the crisis.
The advisory group was chaired jointly by two co-chairs—one from each of Europe and North America—and comprised approximately 15-20 senior leaders with broad experience of international financial markets and an interest in the transparency of financial reporting information.
Areas within the Financial Crisis Advisory Group scope
The advisory group considered how improvements in financial reporting could help enhance investor confidence in financial markets. The advisory group also helped identify significant accounting issues that required the urgent and immediate attention of the boards, as well as issues for longer-term consideration.
In providing that advice, the advisory group drew upon work that was already under way in a number of jurisdictions on accounting and the credit crisis, as well as information gathered from the public round-tables meetings—one each in Asia, Europe, and North America—that the boards hosted in November and December 2008.
The advisory group was invited to discuss, among other issues, the following:
- Areas where financial reporting helped identify issues of concern, or created unnecessary concerns, during the credit crisis.
- Areas where financial reporting standards could have provided more transparency to help either anticipate the crisis or respond to the crisis more quickly.
- Whether priorities for the Board and the FASB should be reconsidered in light of the credit crisis.
- Potential areas that require the attention of the Board and the FASB in order to avoid future market disruption.
- The implications that the credit crisis had for the interaction between general-purpose financial reporting requirements for capital markets and regulatory reporting, particularly for financial institutions.
- The relationship between fair value and off-balance sheet accounting and the credit crisis, both during and leading up to the crisis.
- The findings and relevance of conclusions of various studies that had been under way, including the US Securities and Exchange Commission study under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.
- The need for a due process for accounting standard-setters and its implications for resolving emergency issues on a timely and inclusive basis.
- The independence of accounting standard-setters and governmental actions to the global financial crisis
