New Developments in Management Reporting - The Modernisation of the Annual Report

German Law Journal

Volumn 6, Issue 5, 2005, Pages 861-868

  Buchheim, Regine ^a   Beiersdorf, Kati ^a  

^a Deutsches Rechnungslegungsstandards Committee DRSC ev   (Germany)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 84937685680     PISSN: None     EISSN: 20718322     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S2071832200013997     Document Type: Article

References (25)

1. 1 GmbH & Co. KG is a limited partnership where all of the fully liable members are constituted ad private limited liability companies.
2. 2 The German terminology usually refers only to Lageberichterstattung, whereas there are several English translations. European Accounting Directives differentiate between annual reports and consolidated annual reports. Within National Laws and German Accounting Standards the term is translated into Management Report. Internationally still other terms with similar meanings have emerged. This includes Management Discussion and Analysis (MD&A) or Management Commentary.
3. 3 See Directive 2003/52/EC of 18 June 2003 (Modernisation Directive).
4. 4 Article 46 (1) and (2) of the Fourth Council Directive (78/660/EEC) and Article 36 (2) of the Seventh Council Directive (83/349/EEC), last amended by Directive 2003/51/EC, OJ No. L 178, 17.7.2003, p. 16.
5. 5 The German Bilanzrechtsreformgesetz was enacted on 4 December 2004.
6. 6 See Modernisation Directive, Reasoning (9) and explanatory statement for BilReG, 23 – 24.
7. 7 See BMJ, explanatory statement for BilReG, 24.
8. 8 GAS 15.38 and 15.94 – 98.
9. 9 See IAS 32.51 – 32.85. See www.iasb.org/current/ed.asp for the recent status of the Exposure Draft Financial Instruments: Disclosures (ED 7).
10. 10 See GAS 15.67 – 68.
11. 11 See BMJ, explanatory statement for BilReG, 25.
12. 12 See GAS 15.31 – 32 and 15.111 – 119.
13. 13 See HANS-BÖCKLER-STIFTUNG, Qualität der Lageberichterstattung von Kapitalgesellschaften in Deutschland unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Darstellung von Risiken der künftigen Entwicklung (2004); Karlheinz Küting and Christian Zwirner, Ergebnisse einer mehrjährigen empirischen Analyse der Informationsqualität deutscher Geschäftsberichte, 5 STEUERN UND BILANZEN 193 – 200 (2003);
14. Karlheinz Küting and Matthias Heiden, Zur Informationsqualität der Lageberichterstattung in deutschen Geschäftsberichten – Branchenangaben, Risikobericht, Prognosebericht, 19 STEUERN UND BILANZEN 933 – 937 (2002).
15. 14 See GAS 15.34
16. 15 See IASB MD&A – RESEARCH GROUP; Research Group Findings as presented at IASB meeting February 2005, Preliminary Views: (f); CANADIAN PERFORMANCE REPORTING BOARD, Management’s Discussion and Analysis – Guidance on Preparation and Disclosure (2004), par. 240.1, 310.1 and 320; ACCOUNTING STANDARD BOARD (ASB), Exposure Draft of a Reporting Standard (RED 1) on the Operating and Financial Review (2004), par. 28 – 40.
17. 16 See Modernisation Directive, Article 1 No. 14 amending Article 46 of the 4th Directive and Article 2 No. 10 amending Article 36 of the 7th Directive.
18. 17 See Directive 2004/109/EC of 15 December 2004 on the harmonisation of transparency requirement (Transparency Directive). Official Journal of the European Union L 390/38 of 31 December 2004.
19. 18 The requirements include issuers of shares and issuers of debt securities. Already in 1999 the Commission communicated an “Action Plan” which stressed the need to upgrade transparency requirements. See EUROPEAN COMMISSION, Implementing the framework for financial markets: Action Plan (1999).
20. 19 See Regine Buchheim and Philipp Ulbrich, EU-Transparenz-Richtlinie: Neuregelung der periodischen und laufenden Berichterstattung kapitalmarktnotierter Unternehmen, KAPITALMARKTORIENTIERTE RECHNUNGSLEGUNG (KOR) 273, 287 (2004).
21. 20 In contrast to the 4th and 7th Accounting Directives the Transparency Directive refers to Management Reporting rather than Annual Reporting.
22. 21 See Article 5 No. 4 of the Transparency Directive.
23. 22 Until now only issuers of shares are covered by national regulations See Börsengesetz (BörsG) § 40 Zwischenberichterstattung (Interim Financial Reporting). For further information about the impact of the Transparency Directive see Anton Burger, Philipp Ulbrich and Karsten Luce, Kapitalmarktorientierte Rechnungslegung und Konsolidierungspflicht der Sparkassen, BETRIEBSWIRTSCHAFTLICHE BLÄTTER 96, 105 (2005).
24. 23 See www.iasb.org/meetings/iasb_observernotes.asp for Observer Notes of the IASB meeting in February 2005 and the current status of that project.
25. 24 According to the Accounting Directives and the HGB, small companies with limited liability are exempted from the preparation of an annual report.