Applying ICC’s information compliance principles to current EU and global debates on e-invoicing

As the purveyor of many of international trade’s best known self-regulatory rule-sets, and an organization speaking on behalf of companies of all sizes and sectors in more than 130 countries worldwide, ICC has a keen interest in the emerging space of information compliance and governance. The rate at which companies, governments and citizens adopt the use of digitized information puts pressure on governments to change the ways in which they regulate in areas of law whose enforcement relies on the auditability of certain business records. Electronic invoicing is an early manifestation of this tension, and ICC believes that taking stock of the operation of Directive 115/20011, as one of the first regulatory responses to this pressure on a supra-national level, is critical to ensure that both businesses and governments can apply lessons learned.

Due to the 31 December 2008 deadline laid down in Directive 2001/115 for a European Commission report on technological evolution concerning e-invoicing, many groups have already or are in the process of articulating comments and views on this matter from a European business perspective. ICC would like, by means of this brief paper, to share some key points from a more international and strategic policy perspective.