Introduction to International Accounting 2021 SoSe

The globalization of financial markets in the last decades affected the information demand on the capital markets significantly. Even though companies disclosed mandatory financial statements according to their local GAAP, as for Germany the Handelsgesetzbuch (HGB), the cross-listing of shares on international stock exchanges as New York, London or Tokyo, forced them to publish more investor-oriented financial information. At the end of the nineties, German companies thus started voluntarily disclosing financial statements according to the International Accounting Standards (IAS)/International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). In order to harmonize diverse accounting practices within Europe, the EU-Commission decided the mandatory introduction and enforcement of the IAS/IFRS for consolidated financial statements of public companies since 2005.