RÉSISTANCE ET CONFUSION DANS L'HARMONIZATION DES NORMES COMPTABLES INTERNATIONALES: L'APPROCHE CHINOISE AUX FUSIONS ET ACQUISTIONS

This article focuses on the case of the China Accounting Standards Committee (CASC), which acted in 2006 to require the use of the “pooling of interests method” under certain circumstances when accounting for business combinations. In contrast, the pooling of interests method has been explicitly prohibited by the US Financial Accounting Standard Board (FASB) and the IASB. The paper discusses two principal issues. The first concerns the cultural and economic context of Chinese economic development which led the Chinese standards setters to adopt an approach to accounting for business combinations which differs from the IASB standard. The second deals with the role played by the understanding of the underlying economics of business combinations, which leads in turn to different representations of the combination process. The complexity of accounting for the industrial reorganization that is currently taking place in China has led to the realization that some business combinations are mergers and not acquisitions. This is a significant observation and one which is worthy of greater discussion and consideration by accounting standards setting bodies.