The 18 minute video Research and Standard setting—How to con­tribute to the IASB's work can be accessed here.

The publication is available here on the GRI website.  

One of the questions in the fitness check relates to whether it is still ap­pro­pri­ate that the IAS Reg­u­la­tion prevents the European Commission (EC) from modifying the content of IFRS as issued by the IASB. ESMA notes that the EC has only recently sought feedback on this question twice (2013 and 2015) and both times the great majority of stake­hold­ers cautioned against in­tro­duc­ing such a pos­si­bil­ity. The ESMA response adds:

In line with its prior positions, ESMA strongly disagrees with this rec­om­men­da­tion, most notably because any Eu­ro­pean-spe­cific ad­just­ments to IFRS would defy one of the key ob­jec­tives of the IAS Reg­u­la­tion, namely that financial reporting standards applied by listed issuers are accepted in­ter­na­tion­ally and are truly global standards. In addition, we believe that mod­i­fi­ca­tions to IFRS at the European level would hinder the capacity of European companies to compete for financial resources on equal terms in global capital markets. In our view, the different levels of com­mit­ment to require IFRS as issued by the IASB around the globe is not a jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for in­tro­duc­ing carve-ins. On the contrary, Europe should show lead­er­ship in reaf­firm­ing its com­mit­ment to IFRS. This in turn would increase its ability to influence the de­vel­op­ment of IFRS, which the EU should continue to actively do as part of the IASB’s due process. 

ESMA also states that the current en­dorse­ment criteria should not be changed as the current en­dorse­ment process already provides the necessary safe­guards to the European public good, by providing the pos­si­bil­ity for the non-en­dorse­ment of a standard, which is not conducive to European public good.

Please click to access the press release on the ESMA website, which offers a quick overview over ESMA's position as well as access to the letter of response and the completed ques­tion­naire.

The 2017 IVS were issued on January 18, 2017. The July 2018 con­sul­ta­tion document, including proposed changes and in­dica­tive questions, can be down­loaded here from the IVSC website.

Comments are requested by October 16, 2018.

The webinar provides back­ground in­for­ma­tion, an overview of changes, sup­port­ing materials, and upcoming changes to the IFRS Taxonomy. The IFRS Taxonomy 2018 was issued on March 16, 2018.

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

The first webcasts offers an 11 minute overview of the dis­cus­sion paper. The webcast can be accessed here.

Future webcasts in the series will cover:

• the Board’s preferred approach and clas­si­fi­ca­tion of non-de­riv­a­tive financial in­stru­ments;
• clas­si­fi­ca­tion of de­riv­a­tives on own equity;
• clas­si­fi­ca­tion of compound in­stru­ments and re­demp­tion oblig­a­tion arrange­ments;
• pre­sen­ta­tion of equity in­stru­ments; and
• pre­sen­ta­tion of financial li­a­bil­i­ties.

Com­ments on the pro­posed tax­on­omy im­prove­ments related to Cod­i­fi­ca­tion im­prove­ments are due by August 14, 2018. Com­ments on the pro­posed tax­on­omy im­prove­ments related to Cod­i­fi­ca­tion im­prove­ments to ASC 842 are due by August 17, 2018. Com­ments on the pro­posed tax­on­omy im­prove­ments related to the de­f­i­n­i­tion of col­lec­tions are due by August 10, 2018.

The pocket guide (24 pages) includes insights from the discussions of the Transition Resource Group for IFRS 17 and the simple example of a reinsurance contract held illustrates the requirements applied to a group of underlying insurance contracts and applied to a reinsurance contract held that provides proportionate coverage for that group of underlying insurance contracts.

Review the press release, pocket guide and simple example on the Board's website.

Given the complexity of IFRS 17 and the change it represents for Canadians, the AcSB performed extensive additional outreach activities. The Appendix to the summary lists these activities, all of which were influential in the development of the final standard.

Review the publication on the AcSB's website.

The publication covers:

• what a mutual entity is;
• accounting for contracts issued by a mutual entity; and
• whether a mutual entity could have equity.

Review the press release and the publication on the Board's website.