XBRL International Inc. announces 2009 Steering Committee election results

New York, 30 January, 2009 – XBRL International Inc. (XII) announced today that Mike Willis, Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, has been ratified as the new Chair of the International Steering Committee (ISC) effective 16 January 2009.

During its January meeting in Miami, Florida, the International Steering Committee also ratified Diane Mueller, Vice President, XBRL Development,, JustSystems, as 1^st Vice Chair representing Jurisdictions, Liv Watson, Board Member, IRIS India, as 2^nd Vice Chair representing At Large members, and Arleen Thomas, Senior VP - AICPA, as Treasurer for the ISC.

In addition, we are pleased to announce the election of 5 new At-Large members to the ISC: David Van den Ende, Deloitte Netherlands, Ralf Frank, DVFA Germany, Josef Macdonald, Ernst & Young UK, Michal Piechocki, BR-AG Poland and Li Wei, CSRC, China.

“The organization is quite pleased by the quality of the candidates that were nominated during this election process. With these additions to the International Steering Committee we are poised to address the growing market demands resulting from global XBRL adoption.” states CEO Anthony Fragnito.

Incoming ISC Chair Mike Willis, “The ISC is excited to address the opportunities and challenges arising from the accelerating market adoption of XBRL around the world. The diversity of the individuals elected is reflective of the growing international presence and enabling process implications provided by the XBRL standard."

Please refer to www.xbrl.org for a complete listing of the ISC leadership positions.

To learn more about XBRL the Standard, plan to attend the 19^th XBRL International Conference hosted by XBRL France and XBRL Europe from June 23-25, 2009 in Paris, France. For more information on the conference or if you would like to participate in the program or exhibit your XBRL solutions, go to: http://conference.xbrl.org .

XBRL Canada offers its congratulations to Diane.

Data Level Assurance
by Gerald Trites

The advent of XBRL in the business reporting supply chain has led to discussions about the possibility that, when XBRL ultimately is implemented within the supply chain, there will be an increase in reporting of data outside of the financial statements. Such data would include disaggregated data that might ultimately be included in the financial statements, but is of such a degree of granularity that it cannot be considered part of the statements. Such data also would include the various performance measures that are presently being disclosed. These discussions have also led to speculation that there may be a demand for assurance on these data disclosures. There is further detail in the survey at the following link.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=l1ehS2lW7pn6EvyWMAvl8A_3d_3d
All readers of this blog are invited to go to the survey and fill it out. There are only 9 questions and it will only take about 20 minutes to complete. The results will be used in the completion of a research study being conducted by the CICA on the topic of data level assurannce.

Canadian Move to Single National Securities Regulator: Key to Restoring Investor Confidence
by Diane Mueller

Last week’s recommendation from the Expert Panel on Securities Regulation, led by former federal cabinet minister Thomas Hockin, regarding the formation of a national securities regulator for Canada has been a long time coming. About 40 years of prior debate and research preceded this panel’s 11 months of deliberations which culminated in a forgone conclusion that a single, national securities regulator would be more efficient and effective than the current 13 provincial securities regulatory organizations.

Today, Canada is the only Group of Seven (G7) member without a single national securities watchdog. Even with this new recommendation, it is naïve to think that the provincial regulators will go quietly into the night; the Expert Panel’s recommendation to keep existing staff in place and simply change the reporting lines may appease most provinces during the transition period.In the coming months, we’ll watch the Obama administration take over the reins of the U.S. SEC’s 21st Century Disclosure Initiative; the U.S. blueprint for a modernized disclosure system based on interactive data, or eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL). We’ll also see the Dutch and Australian governments quietly roll out their own financial data standardization and infrastructure modernization efforts to unify “across government” information silos. The time has come for Canada to join the modern era, and a move to a single regulatory body is certainly a step in the right direction and bodes well for the advancement of significant regulatory standards like XBRL.

Next Steps for Canada
Unifying the 13 provincial securities regulators will be a good first step towards streamlining the capital markets regulators and giving Canada an economy of scale for modernizing infrastructure and the underpinnings of Canadian regulatory processes. The next step is to get the Harper government to fund the much needed overhaul and modernization of the regulatory system.

President Obama’s upcoming visit to Canada would be a good time for the Harper government to enter discussions with the U.S. about using XBRL for the filings process to:
• gain overall efficiencies by leveraging global standards,
• aid in the transparency of financial data,
• help mitigate risks in the regulatory process; and
• improve the accuracy and quality of the financial data being reported.

Harper's Finance team should also take a close look at the Dutch and Australian efforts to break down governmental information silos with their move to a Standard Business Reporting (SBR) approach. This SBR approach relies heavily on XBRL because the Dutch and Australian governments have recognized the interdependent nature of government agencies and the increased need for information sharing via a standards-based approach.

With XBRL projects underway across the globe, it doesn't take a genius to see the writing on the wall — more cross-agency, cross-jurisdictional, cross-border cooperation and a standards-based approach are needed to manage the risks that the current global financial crisis has highlighted.

Diane Mueller has been actively involved in the development efforts of the XBRL standard for the past nine years. She is the Canadian representative to the XBRL International Steering Committee, serves as Vice Chair of that body, and chairs the XBRL Working Groups on Rendering and Software Interoperability. She currently serves as vice president of XBRL development at JustSystems, the largest independent software vendor in Japan and a worldwide leader in XML and information management technologies. Learn more about JustSystems at http://www.justsystems.com, and contact Diane at mhtml:%7BC6A0053C-9F5C-4921-9C1D-1F288B86073A%7Dmid://00000099/!x-usc:mailto:diane@justsystems.com.

About XBRL
XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) is a royalty-free, open specification for software that uses XML data tags to describe financial information for public and private companies and other organizations. XBRL benefits all members of the financial information supply chain by utilizing a standards-based method with which users can prepare, publish in a variety of formats, exchange, and analyze financial statements and the information they contain. XBRL International is a non-profit consortium of approximately 500 organizations worldwide working together to build the XBRL language and promote and support its adoption. XBRL International is responsible for the technical XBRL specification and each country-specific jurisdiction works to facilitate the development and adoption of local XBRL taxonomies, or dictionaries, consistent with accounting, regulatory, and market standards and practices.

About XBRL Canada
XBRL Canada is the non-profit consortium for XML business reporting standards in Canada and is a jurisdiction of XBRL International. It represents the business information supply chain, including accounting firms, software companies, financial databases, financial printers, and government agencies. To join or learn more about XBRL in Canada, please visit us at http://www.xbrl.ca.

About JustSystems and XBRL
Along with the SEC, the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) Foundation, XBRL International, and many other organizations worldwide, JustSystems has been aggressively supporting the development of the XBRL standard and integrating the interactive data format into its xfy platform. JustSystems’ software solutions work with XBRL to enable a richer way of working with and utilizing information, leveraging our technology around information search and retrieval, semantics, document management, and data integration. To learn more about how to accelerate the creation, quality, and consistency of the financial content that your organization produces and consumes today or to participate in the JustSystems beta program, please visit http://na.justsystems.com/xbrl_blog/.

21st Century Disclosure Initiative: Report of the 21st Century Disclosure Initiative

21st Century Disclosure Initiative: Report of the 21st Century Disclosure Initiative: "The 21st Century Disclosure Initiative has delivered a report to the Commission setting out a blueprint for a modernized disclosure system. The discussion, analysis, and recommendations in the report are exclusively those of the 21st Century Disclosure Initiative staff, and do not represent the views of the Commission or any of its divisions or offices.
The report recommends that the Commission design and implement a new disclosure system in which interactive data would replace plain-text disclosure documents. Instead of drafting and transmitting ASCII- or HTML-formatted documents based on complex forms, filers would submit interactive data corresponding to the components of required disclosure."

This is an important report, moving the system towards a data oriented method of filing and away from the forms based method. It is centered on a system that would involve use of XBRL for all SEC filings.

Bowne's XBRL Solutions: Ready to Help You Prepare for the SEC Mandate - A webcast on XBRL and preparing for the SEC Mandate | Compliance & Regulatory Industry Events

On January 21, 2009, Bowne is holding a webcase on its XBRL solutions. It'll feature some of their senior people talking about the new SEC rules and how to plan for them. Bowne's XBRL Solutions: Ready to Help You Prepare for the SEC Mandate - A webcast on XBRL and preparing for the SEC Mandate Compliance & Regulatory Industry Events

Bowne for Dealmakers

Rob Blake of Bowne & Co has placed a podcast on the following site summarizing and reviewing the recent SEC rule requiring companies to file using XBRL. Bowne for Dealmakers

On December 31st the SEC released its final rule on Modernization of Oil and Gas Reporting. Section VIII on page 94/95 covers the Application of Interactive Data Format to Oil and Gas Disclosures. The comments are very positive with respect to the use of XBRL. "We agree that much of the disclosures regarding oil and gas companies would be conducive to interactive data. We intend to continue to work on developing a taxonomy for such disclosure."

Rule 33-8995 Dec. 31, 2008
Modernization of Oil and Gas Reporting Other Release Nos.: 34-59192; FR-78 File No.: S7-15-08 Effective Date: January 1, 2010 Comment Due Date: within 30 days of publication in the Federal Register Submit comments on S7-15-08 See also: Proposed Rule Release No. 33-8935