Chris Cox is partner and member of the Corporate Practice Group at Bingham McCutchen LLP and president of Bingham Consulting LLC. Mr. Cox served as Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission from 2005 to 2009. The following post is based on Mr. Cox’s recent keynote address to the 33rd Annual SEC and Financial Reporting Institute Conference. The complete publication is available here.
The modern quest for an “Esperanto” of business has been underway for nearly half a century. And though it was initiated by the United States, after 48 years, it has yet to gain our full support. That is unfortunate, because the promise of a global standard is truly dazzling.
An international language of disclosure and transparency would significantly improve investor confidence in global capital markets. Investors could more easily compare issuers’ disclosures, regardless of what country they came from. They could more easily weigh investment opportunities in their own countries against competing opportunities in other markets. And a single set of high-quality standards would be a great boon to emerging markets, because investors could have greater confidence in the transparency of financial reporting.