In his speech, Mr. Bricker placed emphasis on controls and procedures around “other reporting” such as operating metrics and forecasts. His view is that companies have to be wary as they move beyond non-GAAP measures to report other kinds of supplemental information investors are interested in seeing.

Review the speech on the SEC's website.

The Pocket Guide to IFRS Standards: the global financial reporting language can be downloaded free of charge from the IASB's website.

For more information, see the press release on the IASB's website.

Overall, the AcSB supports the proposed amendments, except as follows:

Exposure Draft – Annual Improvements to IFRS Standards 2015-2017 Cycle – January 2017

The letter expresses concern that the proposed amendments to IAS 28 Investments in Associates and Joint Ventures will not be effective at clarifying the interaction between IAS 28 and IFRS 9 Financial Instruments for long‐term interests. As well, the letter highlights concern over the timing of issuing these amendments because Canadian stakeholders need the amendments endorsed and incorporated into Canadian GAAP by November 1, 2017, when large Canadian banks will first apply IFRS 9. Furthermore, the letter recommends clarifications to the drafting of the amendments to IAS 12 Income Taxes and IAS 23 Borrowing Costs.

Read the AcSB letter posted by the IASB.

Mr. Clayton was nominated by then-President-elect Donald Trump on January 4, 2017. Mr. Clayton replaces acting chairman Michael Piwowar, who has led the SEC since previous chair Mary Jo White’s resignation became effective in January 2017.

Mr. Clayton’s term will end on June 5, 2021. He is expected to be sworn in as soon as Thursday, May 4, 2017.

For more information, see the press release on the SEC's website.”

The statement stresses that the BCBS supports the use of expected credit loss (ECL) accounting approaches and encourages their application in a manner that will achieve earlier recognition of credit losses than incurred loss models while also providing incentives for banks to follow sound credit risk management practices. Still, the BCBS notes that the implementation of ECL accounting is likely to have fundamental implications for the regulatory capital and banks’ provisioning practices in qualitative and quantitative ways.

In view of the limited time until the effective date of IFRS 9 (January 1, 2018), the BCBS has therefore decided to retain the current regulatory treatment of provisions under the Basel framework for an interim period. In the meantime, the BCBS will thoroughly review the longer-term regulatory treatment of provisions. The statement also notes that jurisdictions may adopt transitional arrangements to smooth any potential significant negative impact on regulatory capital arising from the introduction of ECL accounting.

Review the BCBS statement on the Bank for International Settlements' (BIS) website.

The podcast features discussions of the following topics:

• Wider corporate reporting,
• Primary financial statements, and
• Financial instruments with characteristics of equity.

The podcast can be accessed through the press release on the IASB website. More information on the topics discussed is available through our comprehensive notes taken by Deloitte observers of the March 2017 meeting.

Mr. Teotia joins the SEC from Deloitte & Touche LLP where he was a partner in the National Office Accounting Consultation Group. In addition, he served as an SEC accounting fellow in the Office of the Chief Accountant from 2009 to 2011.

Review the press release on the SEC’s Web site.

It is the traditional Catch-22 of financial disclosure. Create a mass of requirements and all you will see is checklist and boilerplate information. Remove some of the requirements in an attempt to encourage judgement and what you get is complaints from investors that they are being denied information. Furthermore, if you want a degree of consistency, preparers need disclosure objectives to exercise their judgement.

There is also the question of whether you need to write out principles about good communication, or whether it should be down to common sense.

Although the debate has been with us for many years this is the IASB’s first attempt to step back, rethink and try to steer an effective way through these issues. The IASB has produced a discussion paper on Principles of Disclosure.

It all comes down to a deceptively simple question: deciding what to disclose and how to disclose it.

The discussion paper leaves everyone with a lot to think about. There are complexities and uncertainties. Will it be possible to create more structure? What role should management judgement be allowed to play? The next six months gives everyone an opportunity to put their views across.

Read the entire column on our Global IAS Plus site.

This issue features:

• An overview of proposed amendments to IFRS 8.
• The usefulness of the new disclosures required in IAS 7.
• Request for views on the Principles of Disclosure discussion paper, proposed amendments to IFRS 8, and primary financial statements.
• Information on investor materials and current events.

The Investor Update newslet­ter is available on the IASB’s website.