Proposition 53K1890

Projet de loi modifiant le Code des sociétés et la loi du 17 juillet 1975 relative à la comptabilité des entreprises.

General information ¶

Submitted by

CD&V Leterme Ⅱ

Submission date

Nov. 22, 2011

Official page

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Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

EC Directive subsidiary consolidated account parent company organisation auditing

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP ∉ Open Vld N-VA LDD MR VB

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

Jan. 26, 2012 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

This draft law aims to simplify the administrative process of corporate law.

It is about transposing a European directive into Belgian law, concerning the obligation of large and medium-sized enterprises to provide information about their consolidated financial statements.

At present, parent undertakings are required to draw up consolidated financial statements, even if the subsidiaries are of negligible significance in terms of capital, financial position or consolidated profit.

This bill eliminates the obligation of consolidation by the parent company, although the possibility remains for parent companies to do so voluntarily. According to the Minister, a thousand companies could benefit from this administrative simplification.

In the committee, there were mostly questions from N-VA and Ecolo-Groen about the concept of “significance to be neglected”. This concept has been applied without problems in Belgian accounting law for years. The Minister promised us that the Committee on Accounting Standards would draw up a definition of the concept of "negligible meaning".

The opportunity was used to submit an amendment to make it even easier for companies. At this time, certain accounting operations require the approval of the Minister, for example when a company wishes to keep the accounting in a currency other than the euro. The amendment aims to allow the administration to make that allocation itself, and thus to adjust the accounting rules.

Both the draft law and the amendment involve a good administrative simplification. They were unanimously approved. So far, Mr. Speaker, the report of the committee.

From our group there are two comments. We welcome this draft law and the amendment, but we look forward to the concept of “negligible meaning” and the content that the Committee for Accounting Standards wants to give to this concept for a company. We hope for a uniform application and interpretation of this concept for companies.

We also have doubts about the existence of companies with a “negligible significance”. What is the reason for such entities to exist? However, this is the subject of another discussion.