Regulation in Business Valuation: The Case of the International Valuation Standards Council

This paper calls attention to the theme of standardization in business valuation which is still a neglected area of research in the scientific community, differently from what happens with regard to the standardization of financial reporting. The issue, in truth, deserves attention because high quality best practices applied by the global valuation profession has effects on the efficiency of the entire economic system, in other words on the public interest. The aim of the paper is to analyse the state of the art of International Valuation Standards (IVS) issued by the International Valuation Standards Council (IVSC), an independent international institution that has the purpose of setting international standards and also of promoting and developing quality professional practices.The study is conducted in the light of an interpretative model that identifies three critical variables: the regulated matter, the regulation strategy, and the regulation system. From the analysis emerges that the International Valuation Standards” (IVS) are by no means comparable to national or international accounting standards (IAS/IFRS and US GAAP) either by extent or by depth of regulation. In particular IVS devote greater attention towards procedural and formal issues rather than towards content issues. They represent only a set of minimum requirements that experts are required to respect, so the subjective nature of business valuation is of particular relevance.