Supervision of IFRS compliance in the European Union

Due to the lack of uniform financial reporting standards, size of the capital markets in the EU corresponded at the turn of the millennium to roughly half of those in the US. As a result, EU decided to introduce a uniform financial reporting standards which would be transparent, fully understood, properly assessed and effectively enforceable. As agreed in the secondary legislation, stock exchange companies from any of the member states become to be obliged to prepare consolidated financial statements in accordance with IFRS. IFRS have been primarily designed for the needs of the capital markets, continental accounting (icluding the Czech one) has been, on the other hand, focused on the protection of creditors, and also heavily influenced by the tax area. Correct application of IFRS requires accountants, who are well aware of the differences between the two systems. If and to what extent, stock exchange companies prepare their financial statements in compliance with IFRS, is examined in this paper. The aim of this paper is to introduce administrative and legislative process leading to the adoption of standards in the EU as well as at national levels, to introduce a system of IFRS comliance supervision and to identify the extent to which stock exchange companies are able to apply IFRS in their financial statements. The paper is divided into five chapters. Theoretical part includes a historical overview of the introduction of IFRS in the EU, overview of the legislation related to IFRS and supervision of IFRS compliance in the EU and in the Czech Republic. Last chapter assesses IFRS compliance in practice