OVERVIEW

This assignment provides you with an opportunity to work with real world business news and to apply the various concepts learned in the course in the context of your own social, political and economic environments. This assignment has two parts. In Part A, you need to discuss about IFRS enforcement in your own country. For Part B, you will need to read the Wikipedia article on Volkswagen emissions scandal posted on Learning@Griffith and answer the questions that appear in this document.

REQUIREMENTS

Part A:

Consider the country where you have lived the longest time of your life. Has this country adopted the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) yet? If yes, when and how? How are the IFRS enforced? That is, what mechanisms and regulations are there to ensure that firms actually implement the IFRS in preparing their financial statements? Discuss.

If your answer is no, is there any plan to adopt IFRS? When and how? As of now, what are the barriers to adopting the IFRS? Discuss.

Word limit for Part A: 500 words

Part B: VW Scandal

Please read the Wikipedia article on VW scandal and answer the following questions.

Question 1: In your opinion, has VW breached its social contract? Take a position and justify your position with examples from the Wikipedia article. (Word limit: 300 words)

Question 2: Consider the daily ordinary share price (in Euros) of VW over the period from 10 Sept 2015 to 6 Oct 2015. Why do you think the VW stock price reacted in the way it reacted during this period? (Word limit: 500 words;)

Question 3: Explain how the future earnings performance and financial position of VW would be affected as a result of the scandal. You need to be specific about which elements of the financial statements are likely to be affected and how. (Word limit: 200 words; 4 MARKS)

• Word Count
- Make sure that you include a word count at the end of each answer. Otherwise, you will lose marks for presentation.

WRITTEN COMMUNICATION

1) EXPECTATION

It is expected that you put your own efforts in doing the assignment and not take any help from external sources, including help from other students. If your answer is very similar to others', heavy penalty and/or charges of academic misconduct may occur. To obtain a good mark, significant editorial time is needed. Do not submit the first draft of your assignment. Multiple revisions of the assignment are needed to achieve a good quality end product.

2) WRITTEN COMMUNICATION and PRESENTATION
Although no separate mark has been allocated for the quality of communication and presentation, low-quality communication (e.g., spelling errors, poor grammar and lack of clarity) may affect your score in each section of the assignment. So please pay attention to the following points:

• Written communication:
- It is important to use sub-headings and short paragraphs to give clarity to your answer - clarity and succinctness* are what distinguishes the very good from the average case study (*succinctness means explaining completely but concisely).
- Allow time for overall editorial work on conclusion of the assignment (each person will have an individual writing style).
- SPELLCHECK (English) and GRAMMAR check must be run prior to submission PLUS it is strongly encouraged that students check the clarity of their writing using the tool "WritersDiet" available at http://writersdiet.com/WT.php

• Presentation:
- High quality presentation includes an appropriately prepared title page, following the instructions for the assignment properly, and good layout of the submission.