GFC or KFC?: How Standard Setters Were Battered and Fried

The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) has exposed the fragility of both the alleged independence of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and their agreement to work together on major projects such as accounting for financial instruments. This paper outlines the events that have dogged the IASB and FASB in their attempts to respond to the GFC and explores the implications of the recent political pressures on accounting standard setting for the likelihood of ultimately achieving one global set of accounting standards.