C-SocPhil Calls for Enhanced Corporate Transparency
C-SocPhil director Joshua Humphreys joins concerned philanthropists in signing comment letter to FASB.
CAMBRIDGE, MA — The Center for Social Philanthropy’s director Joshua Humphreys, a lecturer at Harvard University and a Senior Associate at Tellus Institute in Boston, joined other philanthropic organizations today in signing a public comment letter to the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) supporting enhanced corporate disclosure of liabilities and contingent losses.
Under current accounting standards, corporations are not required to disclose information about long-term liabilities, despite repeated evidence of the material risk that they have historically posed to institutional investors such as philanthropic foundations. The sub-prime mortgage mess, asbestos liabilities, and law suits against oil, pharmaceutical, and tobacco companies are among the kinds of severe long-term contingent losses that have adversely affected corporate balance sheets but remained insufficiently disclosed to investors and the public at large.
The letter to FASB was co-signed by leading foundation representatives including Jill Ratner, President of the Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment, Neva R. Goodwin, Vice-Chair of Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Bruce Hirsch, Executive Director of The Clarence E. Heller Charitable Foundation, Patricia Bauman of the Bauman Foundation, and others.
