Kerstin Lopatta has stepped down as chair of the EFRAG Sustainability Reporting Board (SRB), only five months after the European Commission and European Parliament appointed her to the role at the end of May.
The news was first reported in the German financial daily Börsen-Zeitung who cited disagreements over EFRAG's governance as decisive in her decision to leave. The German daily highlighted tensions between the board and the technical expert group over who has authority on standard-setting.
Lopatta's appointment had been contentious from the start. Starting with a murky parliamentary vote at the European Union, and later positions on supervisory boards of companies notably HSBC that emerged as potential conflicts of interest.
It is not yet clear who will lead the SRB in the interim, or how the departure will affect EFRAG's ongoing work on the simplified ESRS and its interoperability dialogue with the ISSB.
EFRAG and Lopatta had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.