The Committee received a request to clarify the meaning of “interim financial report” in paragraph 4 of IAS 34 since a submitter deemed it is not sufficiently clear with respect to whether the “interim financial report” covers only the information reported under IFRS (meaning the IFRS interim financial statements) or more generally also includes management reports or other elements in addition to IFRS interim financial statements. The issue is whether the required information “elsewhere in the interim financial report” should be provided in the notes to the interim financial statements or may be presented elsewhere.

The staff presented two views:

View 1: All required disclosures should be included in the interim financial statements on the basis that the management report included in the half-year financial report is not part of the financial statements.

View 2: Some of the disclosures required by IAS 34 may be given in the interim financial report, but outside of the interim financial statements. Those who support this view maintain that the interim management report is part of the interim financial report.

The staff took the view on the interpretation of paragraph 4 of IAS 34 that an interim financial report could contain either the complete or condensed interim financial statements and as such propose amendments to paragraph 16A of IAS 34 to clarify the meaning of disclosure of information “elsewhere in the interim financial report” and to require the inclusion of a cross-reference from the interim financial statements to the location of this information. The staff proposed this cross-reference could be a way to present notes in a systematic manner in accordance with paragraph 113 of IAS 1. The staff further noted that in the same manner as the disclosure requirement in IFRS 7, those disclosures should be available to users of the interim financial statements on the same terms as the interim financial statements and at the same time.

The staff sought the views of the Committee as to above proposal.

The Committee generally accepted the logic of the staff proposal, albeit a few members described it as potentially quite superfluous. The Committee discussed the requirements in the United States whereby the criteria of where information presented in the financial statements can be considered stricter and less flexible however noted the benefits of being able to cross-reference under IFRS.

The Chair set out the options to the Committee based on the nature of their discussions and a vote was taken, in which the adoption of the staff proposal was tentatively chosen by the Committee by majority vote.