The accountancy profession is standing strong and looking ahead. In recent years, the expectations of our profession have rightfully increased. We have not only met these expectations; we have in many cases exceeded them. We have concentrated on doing what is right and necessary, not for ourselves, but for the public who has entrusted us with their confidence. We have the conviction and the talent to keep working in that direction. The hearts and minds of professional accountants are willing and prepared to respond to the future.

Presidents, fellow professional accountants, ladies and gentlemen. Good morning. It is a great pleasure to be here to chair and to introduce the third and final plenary session of the 2006 World Congress of Accountants on "value creation through professional accountants in business." I am delighted to be joined here this morning by three most distinguished individuals who will lead our discussions:

• Lady Barbara Thomas Judge, who is, inter-alia, Deputy Chair of the Financial Reporting Council of the UK, Chairman of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority and Deputy Chairman of Friends Provident Plc as well as being a former (and indeed the youngest ever) Commissioner of the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
• Mary Keegan, who is Managing Director, Government Financial Management of HM Treasury in the United Kingdom, Head of the UK Government Accountancy Service and Finance Director of HM Treasury. Mary is also a former Chairman of the UK Accounting Standards Board.
• David Hastings, who is Manager of Insurance, Shell Canada Ltd and a former Chair of CMA Canada's Board of Directors.

It has been an honor and a privilege for me to have the opportunity to work with other accountants from around the world, those in public practice, industry, government and education and especially the leaders of the AICPA and IFAC. In particular, Rene Ricol and Graham Ward as well as Ian Ball have provided strong support during the years the new ethics code was in development, and I know that under Fermín de Valle’s leadership that support will continue. In my grandmother’s words, receiving the Sempier award is the “icing on the cake.” Robert Sempier’s vision of an accountancy organization which brings together all members of institutes throughout the world and recognizes the challenges of the global economy by working together to develop and implement the highest level of professional standards is today a reality. As we end this World Congress in Istanbul, which is so rich in history and diversity, we go out to our own countries and careers re-energized by the discussions and camaraderie of the last few days and more deeply committed than ever to the convergence of high quality standards which contribute to the strength of the profession worldwide and to the development of strong international economies.

Anyone who receives an honor such as the Sempier Award has many people who have helped make their efforts possible. For me that starts with my parents, who raised me to believe in the “power of positive thinking,” and continues with my daughter Patricia, who when she was very small said “different people have different thoughts.” That has served me well in trying to be receptive to the viewpoints of people coming from different perspectives, cultures and regulatory schemes. My sisters and their families, including my nephews who have joined me here at this World Congress, have always encouraged me. My partners in UHY LLP and all of the member firms of UHY International have supported my volunteer work in the profession, providing service to my clients when I could not be there to do so and sharing their own viewpoints and understanding of the issues which face us in the 21^st century world of accounting.

Equally important have been the contributions of all the members of the IFAC Ethics Committee and Jan Munro, the committee’s Technical Manager, whose assistance was  critical in completing the rewrite of the entire Code of Ethics which provides critical guidance for what is expected of accountants in  performance of services in the public interest.

In my forty years of practicing public accountancy, I have constantly been challenged and rewarded by being a part of a profession which has grown to include many new ways in which we serve our clients and the public, and has continued to develop new standards to deal with changes in the economic and regulatory environment.

Advances in technology continue to make our world smaller and each day brings us closer to a truly global community. I believe that the most important element of the public’s reliance on our work is stakeholder trust in what we do. The international accounting and auditing standards that are being developed and adopted around the world are one aspect of attaining this important ideal. But, to me, the foundation for our profession is our ethical behavior. Commitment to integrity and objectivity and demonstration of independence is the foundation for the public’s trust. It is the keystone of our profession and has to come from within ourselves, demonstrated in action as well as words.

Harmony doesn’t mean that we all sing the same note. We serve different roles, as preparers, auditors, regulators or educators. We work in different areas, in firms, large and small, in countries at varying stages of economic development, and view things from our own perspective. Different is good! As a profession, though, we have much more in common than we have differences. We share one set of values and are committed to performing our work with this highest level of professional integrity and intellectual honesty. I hope that each of you recognizes as we leave Istanbul that every person has something to contribute and that each of us represents the others in our actions and our attitudes.

Eli Werlin, one of the founding partners of our firm in the U.S., always emphasized how important it is to continue to learn, adapt to new situations and to be a part of finding new solutions to old problems and new opportunities to provide services. I am honored that the AICPA and IFAC have allowed me to participate in this work and for the recognition of my efforts to make a contribution to our profession. I sincerely thank you all.

I am very proud to have the honor of presenting the IFAC Sempier Award to a professional who I deeply respect for her dedication to this profession.

She is a person of impeccable character and great courage. For the past 40 years she has helped our profession address ethical issues at both a national and international level, doing so with the utmost integrity. For 10 years, she served on IFAC’s Ethics Committee – now the International Ethics Standards Board of Accountants – including five years as its chair. And she served as chair during some of the most challenging times in our profession’s history. Under her leadership, in January 2002, IFAC issued a major revision to its Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants, including a conceptual framework approach for independence requirements for assurance engagements. This approach has now been incorporated throughout the entire IFAC Code of Ethics.

Her work on ethical issues has not been confined to IFAC. Prior to her work with IFAC, she was chairman of the Ethics Committee of the American Institute of CPAs.

I would now like to invite Marilyn Pendergast, the IFAC Sempier Award winner, to join me on the stage.

Marilyn, I highly respect and admire you. Thank you for all you have done. It has been good for the profession. More importantly, it has been good for the public that we serve.

On behalf of IFAC, please accept this award in recognition of your contributions to IFAC and this great profession of ours.

Congratulations Marilyn.

The International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) awarded Marilyn A. Pendergast, CPA, the Sempier Award for outstanding contributions to the international accountancy profession. She is a senior partner with the accounting firm of UHY LLP and a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). Ms. Pendergast is only the fourth person to receive this award, which was presented today at the 17th World Congress of Accountants in Istanbul, Turkey. She was selected from among nominations submitted by IFAC's 160 member bodies in 120 countries worldwide.

The award is named after Robert Sempier, the first chief executive of IFAC, who was also the recipient of the first award. Ms. Pendergast has a distinguished career within the profession and is recognized both nationally and internationally for her leadership on ethical issues. She served as a member of IFAC's Ethics Committee (now the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants) for 10 years and was its Chair from 1999 to 2004. During this time, Ms. Pendergast led the committee in restructuring and updating the international IFAC Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants, including the adoption of a principles-based approach to independence, to ensure the Code's relevancy in the global marketplace. The Code of Ethics applies to all the 2.5 million professional accountants worldwide who are members of IFAC member bodies.

"Ms. Pendergast demonstrated her continuing commitment to the global profession through her leadership of IFAC's Ethics Committee during a time of renewed focus on ethics and independence," states IFAC President Fermín del Valle. "By listening to the perspectives of outside stakeholders and bringing together national viewpoints, she led the development of a code of ethics that is truly global. She has made a real and lasting contribution to the international ethics standards that we have today and which are vital to the accountancy profession's efforts to protect the public interest."

In addition to her service on the IFAC Ethics Committee, Ms. Pendergast served on the Ethics Committee of the AICPA for ten years, including four years as Chair. Within the AICPA, Ms. Pendergast has been an important advocate for understanding international issues in the United States. She is a past member of the AICPA's Board of Directors and its Council. She also served as the first female president of the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants in 1994. Ms. Pendergast, who has close to 40 years of public accounting experience, is a partner with UHY LLP, a CPA firm in Albany, New York. She is a national leader of the firm's government, higher education and non-profit practices.

Today, Ms. Pendergast continues to support the development of the profession both nationally and internationally. She currently represents UHY International, a global network of firms, as a member of the IFAC Transnational Auditors Committee, which plays an important role in encouraging member firms to meet high standards of international practice. She is the Chair of the AICPA's International Strategy Committee and continues to make presentations on ethics issues throughout the world.

About IFAC

IFAC is the worldwide organization for the accountancy profession dedicated to serving the public interest by strengthening the profession and contributing to the development of strong international economies. IFAC's current membership consists of approximately 160 professional accountancy bodies in 120 countries, representing more than 2.5 million accountants in public practice, education, government service, industry and commerce. IFAC, through its independent standard-setting boards, sets international standards on ethics, auditing and assurance, education, and public sector accounting. It also issues guidance to encourage high-quality performance by professional accountants in business.

PROGRAM 

• The current reporting model
• Issues of technology – XBRL
• Risk involved
• Audit and assurance issues
• Scenarios for the use of interactive data
• The impact of the future reporting model on the assurance standards
• Proposals for assurance framework for electronic business reporting
• Call to action

Overview

As part of its comprehensive program to enhance the clarity of international standards, the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB), an independent standard-setting board under the auspices of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC), has issued three exposure drafts of proposed International Standards on Auditing (ISAs) that follow its new clarity drafting conventions. These exposure drafts form part of the IAASB's ambitious 18-month program to redraft existing standards and to develop new and revised standards following the new drafting conventions. The IAASB developed the new drafting conventions after extensive consultation with interested parties, including its Consultative Advisory Group and national auditing standards setters, on how to enhance the clarity of its pronouncements.

Key elements of the new drafting conventions include: basing the standards on objectives, as opposed to procedural considerations; using the word "shall" to identify requirements that the professional accountant is expected to follow in the vast majority of engagements; eliminating the present tense to describe actions by the professional accountant; and structural improvements to enhance the overall readability and understandability of the standards.

The following three proposed standards have been redrafted following the new drafting conventions:

• ISA 320 (Revised and Redrafted), Materiality in Planning and Performing an Audit;
• ISA 450 (Redrafted), Evaluation of Misstatements Identified during the Audit; and
• ISA 260 (Revised and Redrafted), Communication with Those Charged with Governance.

"The concept of materiality, the evaluation of misstatements identified during the audit, and high quality and relevant discussions between those charged with governance and the auditor are fundamental to an audit," explains IAASB Chairman John Kellas. "We believe that the proposed redrafted standards contain clear requirements and easy to understand application guidance in these very important areas."

How to Comment

Respondents are asked to comment on the application of the new drafting conventions only. Comments on all three exposure drafts are requested by February 15, 2007. The exposure drafts may be viewed by going to http://www.ifac.org/EDs. Comments may be submitted by email to EDComments@ifac.org. They can also be faxed to the attention of the Executive Director, Professional Standards at +1 (212) 286-9570 or mailed to IFAC, 545 Fifth Avenue, 14th Floor, New York, NY 10017, USA. All comments will be considered a matter of public record and will ultimately be posted of IFAC's website.

About the IAASB and IFAC

The objective of the IAASB, an independent standard-setting board within IFAC, is to serve the public interest by setting high quality auditing and assurance standards and by facilitating the convergence of international and national standards, thereby enhancing the quality and uniformity of practice throughout the world and strengthening public confidence in the global auditing and assurance profession. The Public Interest Oversight Board oversees the activities of the IAASB and, as one element of that oversight, establishes the criteria for its due process and working procedures. IFAC is the worldwide organization for the accountancy profession dedicated to serving the public interest by strengthening the profession and contributing to the development of strong international economies. Its current membership consists of approximately 160 professional accountancy bodies in 120 countries, representing more than 2.5 million accountants in public practice, education, government service, industry and commerce. In addition to setting international auditing and assurance standards through the IAASB, IFAC, through its independent standard-setting boards, sets international ethics, education, and public sector accounting standards. It also issues guidance to encourage high quality performance by professional accountants in business.