Ämne:	Views on Guidance for implementation (CESR/04-257)

To: The Committee of Eurpean Securities Regulators (CESR) 
Date: 6 Sept, 2004

Föreningen Svenskt Näringsliv (The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise) has taken note of the CESR paper open to public comments - GUIDANCE FOR IMPLEMENTATION OF CO-ORDINATION OF ENFORCEMENT OF FINANCAIL INFORMATION  (Ref: CESR/04-257)

The paper develops the role and operation of the European Enforcer Coordination Serivces (EECS) and procedures concerning usage and contents of a EECS-operated database. Swedish Enterprise welcomes the initiative to provide a forum and technical resources for co-ordinating the decisions of the national enforcement bodies of the CESR-countries. 

Swedish Enterprise concludes that CESR/Enforcement task is very important to secure that coherent and fair enforcement decisions are applied to stock-listed European companies irrespectively of their specific domestic country.  Swedish Enterprise notes that there is an important time-factor involved and urges CESR to have the neccessary procedures put into operation as soon as possible. This might call for a rearrangement of present CESR priorities. Swedish Entreprise believes for instance that equivalency issues, regarding the confrontation of different sets of financial standards outside the IAS/IFRS should not affect the time schedule and resources needed for the CESR objectives to achieve a full and timely set of necessary procedures.   

The enforcement decisions of the national bodies regarding the financial information according to IFRS cannot avoid to have a direct practical impact on the accounting rules and procedures of the whole "accounting community" of Europe. Starting with companies within that same country these decisions will progressively affect also companies of other member states. To Swedish Enterprise the transparency issue is therefore of foremost importance. 

An enforcer´s decision has to be clearly communicated to and clearly understood by not only the scrutinzed company in question but also, as regards the essence of the matter in question, to the surrounding "accounting community". An effective EECS-operated database would be the most useful vehicle for achiving such envisaged transparency, provided a clear transparency policy is developped and put into the design and rules of the data-base. Company integrity being preserved, a quality function of high-lighting and communicating the matter of the case in enforcement decisions of importance should be established within the frame of the EECS operations. According to Swedish Enterprise the above transparency issues should be included in the here addressed Guidance for implementation. 

The rules of the database also should include criteria and procedures for de-recognising database entries, e.g. decisions that have lost relevance due to later alterations of standards or of modes of interpretation. This is an issue that has not been regarded in the present paper. 

Carl-Gustaf Burén
Director Accountancy 
 
Föreningen Svenskt Näringsliv (The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise) 
SE-114 82 Stockholm, Sweden
Phone: +46-8 55343188 
E-mail: carl-gustaf.buren@svensktnaringsliv.se