The EU versus the IASB versus the USA

Abstract

The two preceding chapters have introduced two organisations which are involved in setting rules for the financial reporting of European enterprises: the EU through its directives and the IASB through its International Accounting Standards. This chapter introduces a third actor: the USA. It explains why the American rules (United States Generally Accepted Accounting Principles — always abbreviated to US GAAP) represent a possible alternative for the financial reporting of European enterprises. The existence of three possible sources of the rules for European enterprises makes the study of European financial reporting extremely interesting but also rather complicated. This chapter explores these complications, by analysing how the relationships between the three actors, the EU, the IASB and the USA, have developed in recent years. First it seeks to explain why the rules of a foreign country in a different continent should be of any relevance for European enterprises.