the SEC has promoted a single set of high-quality globally accepted accounting standards, which would reduce country-by-country disparities in financial reporting, according to current Chairman Mary L. Shapiro.4 Moreover, a pre-IFRS practitioner survey of national accounting rules concluded that requiring EU companies to prepare their financial statement in accordance with IFRS, as well as adoption and general convergence in other countries, would lead to a “significant improvement in financial reporting transparency and comparability” (GAAP 2001 [2001]).