We examine disclosure of going concern uncertainties by Australian companies. We begin by outlining the extant reporting framework applicable from accounting and auditing standards, and compare the approach to this issue taken across several different countries – Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. We then examine reporting of going concern uncertainties for a selection of 127 Australian companies reporting at 30 June 2020 that also receive modified audit reports highlighting going concern issues. Our results indicate substantial variation in the specific requirements of audit and accounting standards impacting going concern disclosure across jurisdictions, with relevant disclosure guidance for Australian entities primarily contained in auditing, rather than accounting, standards. Not surprisingly then, we also observe significant variation in management reporting practices. These results inform our understanding of existing disclosure requirements and highlight how regulatory reliance on auditor discussion of going concern issues likely results in relatively limited management disclosure. We suggest that additional guidance may be required from accounting standard setters and also regulators with respect to management discussion of going concern uncertainty.

中文翻译：

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持续经营的不确定性：公司披露了什么？

我们研究了澳大利亚公司对持续经营不确定性的披露。我们首先概述了适用于会计和审计标准的现有报告框架，并比较了几个不同国家（澳大利亚、新西兰、英国和美国）对这个问题采取的方法。然后，我们检查了 2020 年 6 月 30 日报告的 127 家澳大利亚公司的持续经营不确定性报告，这些公司也收到了强调持续经营问题的修改后的审计报告。我们的结果表明，影响不同司法管辖区持续经营披露的审计和会计准则的具体要求存在很大差异，澳大利亚实体的相关披露指南主要包含在审计而非会计准则中。那就不奇怪了，我们还观察到管理报告实践存在显着差异。这些结果使我们了解了现有的披露要求，并强调了监管机构对审计师对持续经营问题的讨论可能导致管理层披露相对有限。我们建议，可能需要会计准则制定者和监管机构就持续经营不确定性的管理层讨论提供额外的指导。