The disclosure in financial statements is one of the pillars of the framework of the Inter- national Financial Statements (IFRS). All the standards include a relevant section with indi- cation about the information and data to be disclosed in the notes, however the feedbacks received from the stakeholders and users indicated the existence of concerns about the ef- fectiveness of disclosures in financial statements and about the disclosure overload.
In order to respond to the above concerns and feedbacks, the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) launched the Disclosure Initiative in 2013. The Disclosure Initia- tive is a multi-faced project that involves various IFRSs aiming to limit the disclosure in the financial statements and improving the financial information, it is part of the global project “Better Communication in Financial Reporting that will be implemented in order to improve the way financial information is prepared by the IFRS entities.
The purpose of the following review is to analyse the different stages of the Disclosure initiative between the four completed phases and the on-going projects and to comment its results.
Key words: disclosure initiative, materiality, principles of disclosure, primary financial statements
