XBRL Europe

On 15 October, XBRL Europe announced the acceptance of Deloitte Innovation BV as its first direct commercial member. 'With Deloitte being the first direct commercial member, we can be sure it will give XBRL Europe a momentum in involving public and private interest groups or organisations in XBRL Europe and thus in the strength of our organsiation', said Gilles Maguet, Secretary General of XBRL Europe.

On 23 June, the European Federation of Financial Analysts Societies (EFFAS) joined XBRL Europe (XBRL-EU) as its twelfth direct member. The EFFAS is currently represented on several XBRL International working committees, including chairing the Best Practices Board and as an At-large member of the International Steering Committee.

Other recent XBRL-EU developments:

l          XBRL-EU published its position on the Consultation papers from the European Commission on the de Larosiere report and on the 4th and 7th directive reform.

l          The XBRL-EU Executive Committee has decided to launch a new working group dedicated to analysts and users, in addition to the existing working groups for EU Business Registers, IFRS taxonomy extensions, and COREP-FINREP harmonisation.

l          XBRL-EU has been included in the MONNET consortium, a research and development project to develop a multi-lingual tool using XBRL, which is to receive funding from the European Commission.

On 27 May the European Commission published a communication on European financial supervision. As well as endorsing most of the conclusions of the de Larosiere report submitted in February, the establishment of two new European bodies was proposed - the European Systemic Risk Council (responsible for collecting and analysing monitoring information) and the European System of Financial Supervisors (responsible for developing technical standards and consistent supervisory practices, supervising credit rating agencies/clearing houses, and establishing a central European database of micro-prudential information from national supervisors).

On 6 May, the European Parliament adopted with amendments, in its plenary session, the proposal for the establishment of a Community programme for financial services, financial reporting and auditing. The proposal stressed the need to converge standards between jurisdictions (or to develop international standards), promoted the Community's involvement in the international standard-setting process for financial markets, and also allocated a community funding budget of EUR38.7 million (increased from EUR36.2 million). The proposal is to be approved by the European Council.

Belgium

On 1 October, the National Bank of Belgium released the latest version of the Belgian Financial Reporting Taxonomy. The Belgian GAAP-based taxonomy, which is a temporary version, is the annual update to be used from 1 April 2010 by non-financial companies and not-for-profit organisations for filing to the Central Balance Sheet Office. Since the launch of the project in 2007, over 98 per cent of filing organisations have been using XBRL, while the rest continue to file manually using paper.

Since the filing of registered companies' annual accounts to the National Bank of Belgium (NBB) in XBRL format was made mandatory in April 2007, over 98% of the 235,000 registered, unlisted, non-financial companies in Belgium have filed electronically in XBRL using the Belgian financial reporting taxonomy. By 2010, all XBRL data will be available on the NBB website, in both XBRL and PDF format.

Poland

On 8 December, XBRL Poland held its national conference, entitled Electronic gathering and publication of financial information by business registers and tax agencies. The conference was hosted by the Warsaw Stock Exchange, in co-operation with the Accountants' Association and the CO KPRM (National Gazette), under the patronage of the Ministry of Finance.

On 8 October, a cross-institutional seminar was hosted by the Ministry of Finance and XBRL Poland. The aim of the seminar was to establish a Standard Business Reporting (SBR) Programme in Poland, with the Ministry of Finance taking on the role of Programme Leader. The SBR Programme aims to standardise business reporting to public institutions by harmonising the exchange of information between these institutions, and also by reducing the amount of reported information.

The Polish FSA is in the early stages of initiating the development of a supervisory platform for gathering, maintaining, analysing and redistributing financial information filed by listed companies, using the IFRS Taxonomy.

France

On 31 July, version 1.01 of the Taxonomy Systeme Unifie de Reporting Financiers (SURFI or Unified System Taxonomy for Financial Reporting) was released by the Banque de France, replacing version 1.0 and including a number of new controls using the XBRL Specification ratified on 22 June.

On 7 July, XBRL France released version 2.0 of the Taxonomie Comptes annuels (TCA), containing updated labels from the Conseil National de la Comptabilite (CNC), the French national accounting council. The TCA is being used in the updated Infogreffe filing portal that was launched by the French companies' registrar in February.

On 20 April, the President of the Conseil National de al Comptabilité (CNC), Jean-Fran？ois Lepetit, declared the conformity of the Taxonomie Comptes Annuels (TCA) version 2.0, via a letter to Philippe Bonnin, the President of XBRL France. "The declaration of conformity of the TCA is fundamental to the consensual adoption of XBRL by institutions and regulatory authorities. It legitimises the statements produced by the taxonomy in conformity with the French General Accounting Plan", said Bonnin.

On 3 April, working version 2.0 of the Taxonomy Système Unifié de Reporting Financiers (SURFI) was released by the Banque de France. The final version is expected for release at the end of June 2009, with the SURFI platform also currently under development and due to be tested in Q1 2010, for final release in June 2010.

Italy

On 26 August, Infocamere announced the receipt of 15,000 XBRL filings for companies' annual accounts made via Registroimprese.it, the online portal of the Italian Chambers of Commerce. Of the 800,000 filings received, 15,000 were voluntarily submitted in XBRL format, compared to the 9,000 XBRL filings submitted in 2008. XBRL filing will be mandatory in 2010 for all Italian companies submitting their annual accounts to the companies' registrar, except for those reporting using IFRS.

Netherlands

On 8 September, the sponsors of the Standard Business Reporting (SBR) programme in the Netherlands - the Ministries of Justice and Finance and the Central Office for Statistics - announced a shift in the programme's approach away from development and towards implementation. This implementation will be overseen by a new Steering Committee composed of five Director-Generals of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the CEO of the Chambers of Commerce, and will be chaired by the Secretary-General of the Ministry of Economic Affairs. An implementation plan is to be prepared and submitted to the Steering Committee for approval. In the meantime, the SBR programme and its working groups continue to function.

Spain

Following the publication of Order BOE JUS/206/2009 in the Boletin Oficial del Estado - the official journal of the Spanish Government - in February this year, mandating the filing of annual accounts to the Mercantile Registry in XBRL, 300,000 annual accounts have been received via the interactive online electronic registry portal to date. It is forecast that over 500,000 instance documents will be available by the end of the year.

The Comision Nacional del Mercado de Valores (CNMV) - the Spanish stock exchange commission - has continued to receive XBRL filings from over 1,000 listed companies each quarter since the launch of its online IPP portal in 2005. The portal also enables the analysis and comparison of listed companies' financial statements based on instance documents.

In April 2009, the updated English version of the Datos Generales de Indentificaion (DGI) Taxonomy was released. Acknowledged by XBRL International and developed by XBRL Espa？a, the taxonomy was also promoted by leading organisations and companies such as the Bank of Spain, the Association of Registrars, Fujitsu and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

UK

On 23 November, Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs (HMRC) released the upgraded version of its Corporation Tax (CT) Online filing software. The system which is XML-based and already in use by over 300,000 companies a year, now features Inline XBRL which enables companies to complete and file Company Tax Returns (CTRs) online. Several hundred XBRL filings have already been successfully submitted using the upgraded system. The online filing of all CTRs using Inline XBRL in the UK will be mandatory from 1 April 2011, which will result in over 2 million returns (and 4 million instance documents) being processed each year.

As part of a common approach to filing company accounts that was announced by HMRC and Companies House in September 2009, Companies House will accept unaudited full company accounts in Inline XBRL by summer 2010, and then continue to develop their Inline XBRL capability for all main types of accounts received.

In November 2009, XBRL UK released new versions of the UK GAAP and UK-IFRS taxonomies. The taxonomies are intended to support financial reporting by ordinary UK commercial and industrial companies in XBRL and are final versions. Both taxonomies are based on reporting regulations as announced at 1 September 2009 and contain a range of financial reporting and technical enhancements to previous public working drafts, reflecting feedback from implementers, accounting reviewers and other users. The UK-IFRS taxonomy is an extension to the IFRS Taxonomy for IFRS regulations published by the IASC Foundation, adapted for UK filing requirements. Constructive feedback on both taxonomies is welcome and should be directed to uktech@xbrl.org. Updated technical guidance on the use of the taxonomies will be published in the coming weeks.

On 1 September, a common approach to filing company accounts on line was announced by Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs (HMRC) and Companies House. Companies House will accept unaudited full company accounts in Inline XBRL (iXBRL) by summer 2010, and then continue to develop their iXBRL capability for all the main types of accounts that they receive. iXBRL is also being used by HMRC's new service for Company Tax Returns (CTRs), whereby all CTRs - including the return form, company accounts and tax computations - must be submitted online to HMRC from April 2011 (for accounting periods ending after 31 March 2010). HMRC's new iXBRL service for CTRs will be available from November 2009. Commercial software with iXBRL capability will be widely available in Spring 2010.

On 15 June, XBRL UK released the working draft of the UK-IFRS Taxonomy which will provide a basis for UK listed companies to report their financial data in XBRL. The taxonomy set is intended for trial implementation and public review, and a final version will be published following the review period. All constructive feedback on the taxonomy should be sent to uktech@xbrl.org.

XBRL UK has also released a set of documents to guide those who are considering using or implementing XBRL in the UK. The documents give an extensive description of the taxonomies that provide a basis for the use of XBRL. They range from a basic introduction for business readers, to a more detailed description of content, features and implementation issues aimed at a technical audience.

On 11 May, draft regulations were issued by Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs (HMRC) requiring the online filing of Company Tax returns using XBRL for all returns delivered after 31 March 2011 for accounting periods ending after 31 March 2010. The regulations also require the electronic payment of all Corporation Tax liabilities after 31 March 2011, which would in turn require returns to be filed using XBRL (currently uncommon practice). These draft amendments to the Income and Corporation Taxes (Electronic Communications) Regulations 2003 are open to public comment until 31 July 2009.

Further advances towards the milestones set out by Lord Carter of Cole's Review of HMRC Online Services in 2006 were announced at the 7th Annual Digita Conference in Coventry on 26 March. HMRC Carter Programme plans to launch a downloadable Corporate Tax filing system for smaller, unrepresented companies in the autumn were unveiled, as were plans for a new validation service that will enable accounts to be filed using Inline XBRL.