Disclosure Framework, Improving, Integrating Certain FASB, SEC Disclosure Requirements, On Deck for FASB Ed Session This Week

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) will pick up its discussion of its Disclosure Framework project at an Education Session (Ed session) this Wednesday, August 3. FASB began webcasting its Ed sessions earlier this year, and although no votes are taken, they provide a glimpse of what's on deck for formal discussion at a future FASB board meeting, generally the meeting held the following week. (This week's FASB board meeting, to be held Friday, is on the proposed Accounting Standards Update on Consolidation: Investment Companies.)

Objective: Improve, Integrate GAAP, MD&A Disclosures
As noted in FASB's project summary of the Disclosure Framework project:

The objectives of this project are to (1) establish an overarching framework intended to make financial statement disclosures more effective and coordinated and (2) seek ways to better integrate information provided in financial statements, Management Discussion & Analysis (MD&A), and other parts of a reporting entity’s financial reporting package. The project objective is not intended to be additive but, rather, to develop a framework for improved U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) that promotes meaningful communication and logical presentation of disclosures and avoids unnecessary repetition.

Roots of Project in SEC's Pozen Committee; ITAC

The genesis of the Disclosure Framework project, as also noted in FASB's project summary, was to:

establis[h] an overarching framework intended to make financial statement disclosures more effective, coordinated, and less redundant. The project was
added in response to requests and recommendations received from several constituents, including the Investors Technical Advisory Committee (ITAC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Advisory Committee on Improvements to Financial Reporting (Recommendations 1.2 and 1.3).

The above-named SEC advisory committee, abbreviated CIFiR, and chaired by Robert Pozen, was informally referred to as the Pozen Committee. Today happens to be the third anniversary of the Pozen Committee's report & recommendations; in honor of the Aug. 1 anniversary of that report (and, we understand, (according to wikipedia!) Mr. Pozen's upcoming birthday on Aug. 8), we are pleased to post as a tribute to that committee, the music video, shown above, Hey There Bob Pozen.

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