Ms. Shah, who will take office in October 2017, is currently Deputy Chief Ac­coun­tant of the Division of Cor­po­ra­tion Finance of the US Se­cu­ri­ties and Exchange Com­mis­sion (SEC). In that capacity she has supported the SEC staff’s dis­cus­sions on IFRSs within the International Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Se­cu­ri­ties Com­mis­sion’s (IOSCO) accounting technical committee.

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

The webinar was tailored to investors and covered the following questions:

• Why IFRS 17 was developed?
• How does IFRS 17 work?
• What are the benefits of IFRS 17?

There is also a section with answers to questions submitted by investors during the webinar.

Listen to the webinar through the press release on the IASB website.

MI 61-101 is designed to facilitate the fair treatment of all security holders by addressing potential conflicts of interests on the part of insiders and related parties in certain transactions, and is already in effect in Ontario and Quebec. The instrument contains requirements for enhanced disclosure, independent valuations and majority of minority security holder approvals for transactions such as insider bids, issuer bids, business combinations and related party transactions.

For further details, re­view the No­tice on the CSA's website and MI 61-101 on the ASC’s website.

The illustrative tagging shows how selected information from the Illustrative Examples accompanying IFRS 17 could be tagged using the IFRS Taxonomy Update that was proposed together with the issuance of IFRS 17 on May 18, 2017 and is currently expected to be published in the fourth quarter of 2017.

The illustrative tagging is available through the IASB's supporting material section of the Taxonomy Update project page.

This questionnaire is open from July 18, 2017 through September 20, 2017. A copy of the report can be accessed here.

The move comes amid the rollout of country-by-country reporting requirements by the Internal Revenue Service that the U.S. is carrying out in conjunction with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s plan for combating base erosion and profit shifting, known as OECD BEPS.

Review the article, the House Democrats' letter to the FASB and the SEC's Investor Advisory Committee's letter to the FASB.

The event was organized by the International Accounting Standards Board, in conjunction with EFRAG, the European Federation of Financial Analysts Societies (EFFAS), and the Association Belge des Analystes Financiers (ABAF/BVFA).

It introduced the main elements of the Discussion Paper, the preliminary positions held, focused on the information needs of investors, and sought input on the following issues included in the Discussion Paper: (i) Can principles make communication more effective? (ii) What do investors think are useful examples of disclosures in the financial statements? (iii) Alternative (non-IFRS) performance measures in the financial statements: misleading or useful? (iv) Should unusual or infrequently occurring items be separately reported and if so how? and (v) How important is the application of materiality when deciding what and how to disclose information?

Re­view the Summary Report on the IASB’s website.

Ms. Peirce is cur­rently a senior re­search fellow and di­rec­tor of the fi­nan­cial markets working group at the Mer­ca­tus Center at George Mason Uni­ver­sity. Pres­i­dent Barack Obama nom­i­nated Ms. Peirce for the po­si­tion last year; however, the Senate did not have a hearing on her nom­i­na­tion.

For more in­for­ma­tion, see the press release on the White House’s Web site.

The focus on climate-related concerns has changed. It has moved away from simple worries about global resources to a much more tangible concern about risks and opportunities. The final report from the Financial Stability Board’s Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure is expected to change attitudes to the quality of and responsibility for climate-related corporate reporting fundamentally. The old idea that such issues can be downplayed as simply high-minded concerns rather than being seen as the arena for serious risk assessment and resulting action will then, in turn, change. The report focuses on the information that investors need.

It starts from the position that climate-change risks are one of ‘the most significant, and perhaps most misunderstood, risks that organisations face today’. Its recommendations and disclosures aim to ensure that investors, lenders and insurance underwriters are provided with a full understanding of those risks. And while the disclosure recommendations may be voluntary the clear expectation is that momentum and the market will demand their implementation.

There are four fundamental areas of disclosure. First an organisation’s governance around climate-related risks and opportunities, then the actual and potential impacts of climate-related risks and opportunities on the organisation’s businesses, strategy and financial planning. Thirdly the processes used by the organisation to identify, assess, and manage climate-related risks; and finally the metrics and targets used to assess and manage relevant climate-related risks and opportunities.

Support has been swift from the asset owners and asset managers’ community. And it is clear they intend driving a swift and widespread adoption of the framework. For example, Stuart Gulliver, CEO at HSBC, said that: ‘These recommendations are very welcome. The impact of climate change and the transition to a lower-carbon economy deserve board-level scrutiny and governance. Independent research commissioned by HSBC shows that less than a quarter of companies currently disclose their environmental impact. This makes it very difficult for analysts and investors to assess and compare how sustainable these companies are. These recommendations are a practical and pragmatic response to the need for consistent and comparable climate-related financial disclosure’.

More than a hundred firms around the world with a total market cap of some $3.3 trillion have agreed to actively support implementation and encourage others to do so. The task force will remain in place until at least September 2018 to promote and monitor adoption and to evaluate ‘the extent to which the recommended disclosures are meeting the interests of users’. With the backing it has, the move mainstream of climate-related financial disclosure is well under way.

Read the en­tire col­umn on our Global IAS Plus web­site.

The analysis in the report entitled, Financial stability im­pli­ca­tions of IFRS 9, focuses on two aspects: (i) IFRS 9 and fair value accounting for the mea­sure­ment of financial assets; (ii) the new expected credit loss paradigm

The report notes that the ESRB concludes that IFRS 9 rep­re­sents a major im­prove­ment in com­par­i­son with IAS 39 and is expected to bring sub­stan­tial benefits from a financial stability per­spec­tive. Together with the greater clarity and certainty as­so­ci­ated with its prin­ci­ples-based approach to the clas­si­fi­ca­tion and mea­sure­ment of financial in­stru­ments, the earlier and fuller recog­ni­tion of im­pair­ment losses under the new expected credit losses model is expected to have positive effects on financial stability.

The ESRB report is ac­com­pa­nied by an oc­ca­sional paper entitled, Assessing the cyclical im­pli­ca­tions of IFRS 9 – a recursive model. This paper describes a model for assessing different ap­proaches to the accounting of credit im­pair­ment losses. In par­tic­u­lar, it compares the impact of a crisis on banks assuming four such different ap­proaches, including the current approach in IAS 39 (incurred losses) and the solutions adopted under IFRS 9 and in the United States re­spec­tively.

For further information, refer to the press release on the ESRB’s website.