Chile

On 31 March 2009 the Superintendencia de Valores y Seguros (securities and insurances superintendency, SVS) received the first XBRL reports generated using the CL-CI Taxonomy SVS that was released in November 2008. The reports were received from the largest listed companies on the Securities Market filing their annual financial statements in XBRL and according to IFRSs. The project is considered an important step towards the creation of the first XBRL jurisdiction in South America. The SVS also released the Taxonomy CL-HB on 27 April, an extension of the CL-CI Taxonomy to be used by the parent bank.

US

XBRL US Labs issues call for research partners and names research fellows

On 19 November, XBRL US issued a Call for Research Partners to expand research and development projects already under way to develop taxonomies for corporate actions, proxy and governance, and asset-backed securities. Other areas of research will also include the harmonisation of XBRL with other standards such as ISO 20022 for financial services and the Federal Government's NIEM framework, and advanced work on XML and XBRL implementations in the areas of identity management, extensibility, and rendering of tagged documents and data streams. XBRL US also named the first Research Fellows, all three of whom have been recognised for their major contributions to the development of the US GAAP Taxonomy, including Dr. Walter Hamscher, SEC Office of Interactive Disclosure and member of the IASC Foundation XBRL Quality Review Team.

Launch of XBRL US Labs

On 14 September, XBRL US announced the launch of XBRL US Labs, a research and development centre that will perform commissioned research in partnership with private and public sector partners to advance open XBRL standards and, in particular, harmonise XBRL financial and business reporting taxonomies with other XBRL messaging standards in the financial services sector and NIEM in the US Federal Government sector. The XBRL US Labs team will consist of five professionals who have been involved in various aspects of XBRL US research and development for the last three years, and will be led by Campbell Pryde.

FASB and XBRL US align XBRL US GAAP Tags to new accounting Codification

On 4 August, XBRL US and the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) announced the completion of the revised XBRL US GAAP Taxonomy to reflect the FASB Accounting Standards Codification that was released on 1 July. The Codification is the single source of authoritative non-governmental US GAAP and is effective for the interim and annual periods ending after 15 September 2009. The Codification reorganises the thousands of US GAAP pronouncements into roughly 90 accounting topics and displays all topics using a consistent structure. It also includes relevant Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) guidance that follows the same topic structure in separate sections of the Codification.

SIF calls for SEC to mandate ESG reporting

On 21 July, the Social Investment Forum wrote to the Chairman of the US SEC recommending the introduction of mandatory environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting. Fifty major investment firms were co-signatories to the letter asking the SEC to require companies to report annually on a cohesive set of sustainability indicators in accordance with the most up-to-date reporting framework of the Global Reporting Initiative, including the use of XBRL, and on other material ESG matters as they come to light.

On 28 May, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), SWIFT and XBRL US announced a plan to fundamentally change corporate actions announcement processing, bringing greater accuracy, reduced risks and costs, by improving transparency and communication between issuers and investors. The collaboration will promote straight-through-processing by electronically capturing data directly from issuers or offerors at the point that a corporate action is announced and in a standardised format. The plan looks to build on the existing ISO standards that have already brought important efficiencies in the corporate actions process by integrating the benefits of XBRL, already used by public issuers in the US, to streamline the processing of corporate action announcements.

On 13 May, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Ranking Member Darrell Issa (R-CA) introduced legislation that would allow government officials and the public to track the use of TARP funds and value toxic assets. H.R. 2392, the Government Information Transparency Act, aims to standardise the collection, analysis, and dissemination of business information by federal agencies by mandating the use of XBRL. "The technology exists to create real transparency that would allow us to track TARP dollars and value toxic assets but the Federal government is far behind the curve in implementing available solutions," said Issa. "This legislation offers more than the promise of change and transparency, it is a substantive plant to implement it." The legislation has been referred to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

On 21 April, XBRL US announced the 2009 release of the US GAAP Taxonomies, which have been accepted by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). XBRL US also plans to provide tools to help companies work with the new taxonomies in order to comply with SEC requirements, including SEC Filer Training programs, software tools and services matrix, and free educational webinars.

Canada

XBRL Canada is currently working on a project to assist companies with convergence to IFRS, which is currently scheduled to take place by 2011. The project, conducted in conjunction with the IASC Foundation, will result in a taxonomy that conforms with IFRS as used in Canada and also tools that will cross-reference existing Canadian GAAP and IFRS.