INTRODUCTION
ecent events in the Russian Federation have raised expectations that Russia is accelerating the process
of the converging of its national reporting standards with International Financial Reporting Standards
(IFRS). In particular, this includes the passage in 2010 of the Law on Consolidated Accounts (LoCA)
requiring the use of IFRS for all consolidating financial reporting and the signing of Regulation 107 by Prime
Minister Putin in February 2011 (Russian_Federation, 2010) (Russian_Federation, 2011). The latter affirms that law
and sets into motion a series of activities to take place in the remainder of 2011 in to achieve expert examination of
all documents representing IFRS in an acceptable Russian version to be approved by The Ministry of Finance
(Minfin) of the Russian Federation for consolidated financial reporting of periods beginning on, or after, January 1,
2012. Critics within and outside Russia are not convinced that such a partial adoption of IFRS in Russia can be
achieved within such a time frame.
In this paper the current process of Russia‘s movement toward adoption of IFRS is examined within the
context of Russian cultural, governmental and private sector organizations with additional focus on examples of
IFRS harmonization outside of Russia that may contribute to a better understanding of the factors that will lead to
successful adoption of IFRS within Russia‘s currently planned time frame.