International Accounting Standards Committee

IASC The predecessor of the *International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). Established in 1973, the IASC’s founder members were representatives of the accounting professions of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom (and Ireland), and the United States. The IASC issued * International Accounting Standards (IAS) to encourage standardization and *harmonization of financial reporting throughout the world, but its success was limited. The preponderance of English-speaking members at the higher echelons of the organization made some countries’ accounting standards-setters reluctant to embrace the IASC’s harmonization drives. To many, IAS were too close to U.S. or British practices. As one commentator put it: "It is in continental Europe and Japan that there has been the greatest ambivalence towards the IASC. To some extent the IASC has been seen as a Trojan horse which conceals the Anglo-Saxon accounting enemy inside a more respectable international facade. The horse is wheeled into the heart of Europe and then its contents subtly contribute to the undermining of traditional continental accounting" (Nobes and Parker, 2002, 82). Reform of the IASC led to its dissolution, and its replacement by the more geographically representative *IASC Foundation and its standards-setting body, the IASB. Further reading: Carsberg (1996); Nobes and Parker (2002)