Too Much Disclosure?

By Cydney Posner

Is anyone surprised? As reported in Compliance Week, a study by KPMG and the Financial Executives Research Foundation finds that investors "are overwhelmed by the volume and complexity of disclosures that are issued by public companies, making it difficult to make good investment decisions."  According to the article, the volume of disclosures in annual reports and other financial statements has grown by 16% in the past six years (28% in the footnotes). The study concludes that the point of all the disclosure is lost: "'The sheer quantity of financial disclosure has become so excessive that it has diminished the overall value of these disclosures,'" said a KPMG partner, commenting on the study.

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