Contributions to Nonprofit-Organizations

DVFA calls for uniform EU quality assurance software for ESEF financial and ESRS sustainability reports from ESMA

March 8. 2024. As part of the ESMA consultation on the new European Single Access Point (ESAP), the DVFA, the association of investment professionals in Germany, criticized the lack of a quality assurance system as a serious design flaw in the ESAP. The DVFA Commission for Corporate Analysis, of which I am a member and focus on digitalization issues, has submitted a detailed proposal to ESMA on this matter. The Problem: In our opinion, there is a lack of uniform Europe-wide regulations for the technical enforcement of a uniform minimum quality of data. Technical filing rules are implemented inconsistently at the various OAMs (business registers and others) in Europe. In some member states they are mandatory. In others they are voluntary for the reporting companies. In addition, they are not harmonized within Europe. This seems to be a very big

March 8, 2024

EU national law Extensions of the IFRS XBRL Taxonomy

February 28, 2024. When preparing the DVFA (German Association of Investment Professionals) statement for the ESMA consultation on the ITS of the new European Single Access Point, I came across the following question (Q24): “Do you think that information required at national level pursuant to Article 3(1) of the Transparency Directive (so-called gold plating) should be captured by certain specific types of information? Or would you prefer such information to be captured by one generic category, namely “Additional regulated information required to be disclosed under the laws of a Member State”? My IFRS SLC working group at XBRL Europe dealt with this topic in 2009. Based on a detailed study by the IFRS working group of XBRL Germany, which I also led, we showed which information was reported from which German legal sources. This resulted in a proposal for EU

February 28, 2024

How XBRL can significantly improve the European Capital Market – annual financial reports

December 20 2023. This was an exciting event at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in 2009. Some of my statements from back then, some of which are unfortunately still relevant in Europe today: “In the US negative feedback of Investment Professionals had been received (see documents of the CFA Institute for example). Consequently they added more concepts and the US SEC gave more binding guidance on extensions. In Europe we may receive the same feedback than in the US, if don’t learn from US’s experience.Europe has the chance to to do even better!“ “Investment Professional will only applaud for XBRL, if we reach comparability at an acceptable level.“ “XBRL technology could be key for improving the European capital markets for all listed companies but especially for small and mid caps. However issuers will not benefit from capital markets being improved

December 20, 2023

The complexity of ESEF harmonization

Paris, June 14 2022. With the introduction of the European Single Electronic Format (ESEF) for the annual financial reports of listed companies, the European Parliament aims to improve the transparency of the capital markets, especially for small and medium-sized listed companies, to reduce information costs and to enable comparability of financial reports, among other things. These goals can only be achieved if listed companies apply ESEF uniformly in Europe and it is technically ensured that a minimum quality is maintained. In my opinion that is not the case at present. The reasons for this situation lie in particular in legal gaps, as the German Association of Investment Professionals (DVFA) has communicated several times in public statements. I already described this obvious problem in my article for the German Börsenzeitung in 2017. An EU-wide harmonization of the legal gaps is necessary

June 15, 2022

EFRAG: Digitalization readiness-check of the very first draft of the new ESRS

June 13 2022. During the development of the new European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) within EFRAG, I had the opportunity to review a very first draft of the ESRS as one of four selected XBRL experts. As part of the digitalization readiness-check we looked at each ESRS data point individually. We then provided feedback and recommendations to responsible cluster members. With our recommendations on possible adjustments to the ESRS texts, we have pursued the goal of creating the basis for the best possible digitalization capability of the new ESRS. source: EFRAG, Digitisation of the European Sustainability Reporting Standard (ESRS), see slide no 6, Paris, June 13th 2022 ← back June 13 2022. During the development of the new European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) within EFRAG, I had the opportunity to review a very first draft of the ESRS as one

June 13, 2022

Recommendation of an Europol Expert Group on criminal finance, money laundering and asset recovery to the EU Commission

October 30 2020. Within the CFMLAR project – Criminal Finance, Money Laundering and Asset Recovery-, I was asked to lead an Europol Expert Group of technical experts from the national federal criminal investigation offices in Europe. CFMLAR is part of EMPACT, the European Multidisciplinary Platform Against Criminal Threats. Over several years of work, we have developed joint recommendations. The expert group adopted this in our last workshop from October 28th to 30th, 2020 at the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) in Wiesbaden. Our recommendations were then handed over to the EU Commission. ← back October 30 2020. Within the CFMLAR project – Criminal Finance, Money Laundering and Asset Recovery-, I was asked to lead an Europol Expert Group of technical experts from the national federal criminal investigation offices in Europe. CFMLAR is part of EMPACT, the European Multidisciplinary

October 30, 2020