European Will Oversee Accounting Standards
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The International Accounting Standards Committee has been pressured by some European politicians who want the board to be more accountable to governments.
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Microsoft has agreed finally to take  steps to comply with the European Commission's landmark 2004  antitrust decision against it, the EU's executive arm said on  Monday.
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The Financial Accounting Standards Board, which sets U.S. accounting rules, plans to propose on Tuesday an overhaul which would allow the board to act faster and boost the power of its chairman, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.
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The European Parliament will grill incoming EU commissioners over the next two weeks with questioning likely to focus on potential conflicts of interest of a few wealthy members of Jose Manuel Durao Barroso's ...
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Status report notes compliance, but European Union continues to study Vista specs.
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The incoming European Commission is to fight for jobs and growth at the expense of red tape, Peter Mandelson, the Trade Commissioner designate, promised business leaders on the first morning of the Confederation of British Industry&#39;s annual conference here
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(InfoWorld) - Standards body Ecma International expects to publish the final draft of the Office Open XML file formats specification proposed by Microsoft Corp. as early as Monday, ahead of a formal vote to adopt the specification as a standard in December. Governments are taking an interest in open-standard document formats as a way to guarantee access to legacy public information, and to avoid dependence on developers of proprietary software. Denmark's government voted in June to mandate the use of open-standard document formats in central government from Jan. 1, 2008. For now, five ministries are testing the OpenDocument Format (ODF) standard, used in open-source software suite OpenOffice.org, and also in proprietary software including Sun Microsystems Inc.'s StarOffice and IBM Corp.'s Workplace. ODF is a rival to Office Open XML. If ECMA approves the Office Open XML format, used by Microsoft in its forthcoming Office 2007 software suite, the Danish ministries could use that instead. The French government is conducting a public inquiry into how to make its computer systems interoperable, but has reached no conclusions yet. However, in a report commissioned by the prime minister, National Assembly Deputy Bernard Carayon called for a law making it compulsory for French government departments to use ODF when they create or distribute documents. He suggested that France ask its European partners to do likewise when exchanging documents at a European level. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO)Â approved the ODF standard in May, but the Office Open XML specification is still some way off that status. Ecma's General Assembly will vote on the text during its meeting on Dec. 7 and Dec. 8. It cannot amend the text, only accept or reject it. If the final draft of the Office Open XML specification wins the assembly's approval, it will become an Ecma standard, and go on to ISO for fast-track approval, which can take six months to nine months. ISO may request amendments to the standard before voting to approve it. Both Ecma and ISO are based in Switzerland. Before submitting the text to the general assembly, Ecma's Technical Committee 45 will publishÂ the final draft on the standards body's Web site. That could happen as early as Monday, according to Ecma employee Isabelle Walch, and another source with knowledge of the process. The publication of the draft will give software developers a chance to make their applications compatible with the final version of Microsoft's Office 2007 document format ahead of the application suite's launch to business users at the end of this year. Technical Committee 45 has held six meetings to discuss the Office Open XML specification since beginning work on it last December. At the most recent meeting held in Trondheim, Norway, from Sept. 26 to Sept. 28, participants discussed numerical data precision, a mechanism for describing application characteristics, and extending spreadsheet capacity before agreeing the final draft, committee member Tom Ngo wrote in a report of the meeting. Ngo is chief technology officer of NextPage Inc. The meeting is chaired by two representatives from Microsoft, while other committee members represent the British Library, the U.S. Library of Congress, and companies including Apple Computer Inc., Intel Corp., Novell Inc. and Toshiba Corp.ADVERTISEMENTMAKE SOA REAL WITH IBM WEBSPHERE PODCASTStreamline processes and maximize efficiency within a proven service oriented architecture. Take back control of your business processes with IBM WebSphere.
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Europe's Parliament is to look at how data on air passengers and citizens' bank details is being sent to the US.
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Food labelling should be standardised across Europe, the Commission says.
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The body that decides who will set accounting rules in the United States plans on Tuesday to propose changes aimed at enabling the Financial Accounting Standards Board to act faster.
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Federal regulators tentatively agreed to ease an accounting requirement for foreign companies that trade on U.S. exchanges.
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Europeans seek assurances that company is respecting privacy rights of people whose data it retains.
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A European Central Bank plan to operate a new system for settling share and bond trades in the European Union will come under close scrutiny by the region's top antitrust watchdog.
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The US accounting standard setting body on Wednesday will consider a new model for valuing employee stock options that could potentially resolve some concerns of companies opposed to compulsory options expensing.
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When a European court hands down its  landmark Microsoft  antitrust decision next Monday, at  stake will be nothing less than the power of the European  Commission to regulate the high-tech industry.
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The European Union head office adopted new accounting rules Monday requiring European-listed companies to book stock options they grant to employees as expenses.
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Microsoft has modified Vista for release in Europe to meet European Commission requirements.