In December 2017, the IASB concluded its discussions of the scope of the project and the webinar will discuss the Board’s decisions and illustrative examples of transactions within the scope.

The IASB will offer a morning and an afternoon session to accommodate stakeholders in time zones around the world. Both 45-minute web presentations will also allow participants to ask questions. Registration is required (on the IASB's website) for the sessions:

• Session at 9:30 (GMT)
• Session at 15:00 (GMT)

A recording of the webinar will be available in due course.

Review the press release on the IASB's website.

The study, by Rahul Vashishtha and Mohan Venkatachalam of Duke University's Fuqua School of Business and Arthur G. Kraft of the Cass Business School of City University London, is set to appear in an upcoming issue of The Accounting Review, published by the American Accounting Association. The professors found that, when new regulatory mandates forced companies to increase the frequency of their financial reporting, they reduced their annual capital investments by around 1.5 to 1.9 percent of their total assets, depending on how the capital investments were defined. The average annual capital investments of those companies totaled approximately 9 percent of assets, so those reductions were hefty cuts.

Review the full article on Accounting Today's website.

This whitepaper explores compliance approaches, explains the importance of governance to successful compliance, and offers guidance on implementing new technologies to support GDPR initiatives.

In this report, you will learn:

1. How to solve for the challenge of identifying and accessing the right data
2. The right approach to track evolving data environments
3. Technology your peers will use to fulfill the GDPR’s many requirements

Download the report on Compliance Week's website.

The webcast is presented in two parts:

• Part 1 explaining why and how insurance contracts are grouped.
• Part 2 discusses recognition, derecognition and disclosures.

Review the press release on the IASB’s website. In addition, earlier webcasts and webinars on IFRS 17 are available through an archive.

And while there should be more momentum in the year ahead, the country could continue to see trade conflicts with the U.S., as well as potential social unrest, experts say.

Review the full article on Warton's website.

Two potential changes to the Whistleblower Program have been flagged by the Ontario government and the Commission, respectively.

• The Ontario government said it intends to introduce a civil cause of action for whistleblowers who experience reprisal for cooperating with the Commission.
• The Commission has proposed revisions to the Whistleblower Program to clarify that in-house counsel who report misconduct in breach of applicable law society rules will not be eligible for a whistleblower award.

Review the OSC Notice on the OSC's website and a summary on Torys LLP's website.

The proposed ASU requires financial statement preparers to reclassify stranded tax effects within accumulated other comprehensive income to retained earnings in each period in which the effect of the change in the U.S. federal corporate income tax rate in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (or portion thereof) is recorded. The amount of the reclassification would be the difference between the historical corporate income tax rate and the newly enacted 21 percent corporate income tax rate.

In the period of the reclassification, organizations would make the following transition disclosures:

• The nature and reason for the change in accounting principle
• A description of the prior-period information that has been retrospectively adjusted, and
• The effect of the change on affected financial statement line items.

The proposed amendments would be effective for all organizations for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2018, and interim periods within those fiscal years. Early adoption would be permitted.

Review the press release and proposed ASU on the FASB's website.

The feedback included the Group’s recommendations to the Board to consider whether the issues related to cryptocurrencies, cloud-computing arrangements, lease incentives and interim period reporting of variable lease payments should be raised to the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) or the IFRS Interpretations Committee. The Board will consider these issues at a future meeting.

Review the Executive Summary on the AcSB's Web site.

The summary is being published as part of the IASB's initiative to help constituents understand the requirements of IFRS 17. The summary explains different elements of the accounting model and how they will be displayed in certain financial statements.

For more information, see the IASB's website for the following:

• One-page summary of IFRS 17
• Press release
• Webcast guide of the summary
• Webcast without animation (link to the IASB's YouTube channel)

The tax will be based on the carbon emissions from combusting the fuel or waste and is set to start at $10 per tonne of greenhouse gas emissions on January 1, 2019, and then rise by $10 per tonne each year until it hits $50 per tonne in 2023.

The proposed law also includes an output-based pricing system for large carbon emitters where instead of paying the tax they will pay for carbon emissions that are above national averages in their industry.

Directors and officers of corporations can also face personal liability if they assent to or participate in a corporation committing an offence.

Review the proposals on the Department of Finance Canada's website and an article on Norton Rose Fulbright's website.