At its meeting on October 20, 2015, the IASB discussed the issues to be included in a planned Discussion Paper for this research project. The IASB members highlighted some issues of particular interest, including: (i) the information needs of users of financial statements; (ii) the rights and obligations created by the schemes and how these could be reflected in any possible accounting models; (iii) whether, in other contexts, intangible assets exist that include rights similar to those created by these schemes; and (iv) the interaction of the liability recognition issues with the proposed definition of a liability in the Exposure Draft Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting. The IASB will continue its discussion at future meetings.

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At its meeting on October 20, 2015, the IASB met to finalize deliberations on the new Leases Standard. The IASB specifically discussed: (i) sweep issues that arose as part of the drafting process; and (ii) the effective date of the new Leases Standard.

The IASB tentatively decided: (i) to require an entity to apply the new Leases Standard for annual periods beginning on or after January 1, 2019; and (ii) to permit an entity to apply the new Leases Standard early if the entity also applies IFRS 15, Revenue from Contracts with Customers at or before the date of early application.

Also, the IASB tentatively decided not to require any disclosures for leases within the scope of IFRS 5, Non-current Assets Held for Sale and Discontinued Operations beyond those required by that Standard.

This meeting concluded the deliberations on the new Leases Standard. The staff will proceed to balloting the new Standard.

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At its meeting on October 21, 2015, the IASB discussed: (i) the classification and measurement of financial assets on transition to the new insurance contracts Standard (including transition reliefs and disclosure requirements); (ii) restatement of comparative information on initial application of the new insurance contracts Standard; (iii) if the new insurance contracts Standard should retain the mirroring approach; and (iv) presentation and disclosures for insurance contracts. The IASB will continue its discussions on insurance contracts at a future meeting.

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At its meeting on October 21, 2015, the IASB discussed an analysis of: (i) the challenges associated with accounting for derivatives on "own equity"; and (ii) how IAS 32 Financial Instruments: Presentation deals with those challenges.

The IASB acknowledged that any approach to classifying derivatives on ‘own equity’ will require a compromise between reflecting the underlying exchange of equity and non-equity instruments and the operational challenges of doing so.

The IASB will continue its discussion at a future meeting.

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At its meeting on October 21, 2015, the IASB decided: (i) not to include disclosures on cash and cash equivalents in the amendments to IAS 7, Statement of Cash Flows related to the reconciliation of liabilities from financing activities (the "reconciliation"). The IASB noted that, as a consequence, the reconciliation would be finalized as a stand-alone amendment to IAS 7. And (ii) that it would discuss the scope of a broader examination of liquidity disclosures at a future meeting, taking into consideration the feedback received in this project and in the responses to the Agenda Consultation. They also tentatively decided that the effective date for the final amendments should be for annual periods beginning on or after January 1, 2017 and they tentatively decided not to require entities to restate comparative information for any preceding annual period.

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At its meeting on October 21, 2015, the IASB tentatively decided that a first-time adopter of IFRS should be prohibited from applying the deferral and overlay approaches. The IASB expects to publish the Exposure Draft of amendments to IFRS 4 in December 2015.

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