Issued in July 2012, the DP proposed ways to improve the quality of information in the notes to the financial statements and to reduce immaterial disclosures. After the consultation period, which ended 31 December 2012, the EFRAG, ANC, and FRC reviewed and summarised comments received from respondents, various outreach meeting, and webcasts. The summary notes the following:

• Support for the proposal that a more consistent and rational approach to disclosures should be developed and that it should be developed cooperatively with standard setters, regulators, and auditors.
• Additional discussions may be needed about whether disclosure problems are conceptual or related to application.
• General support for the DP's key principles.
• An absence of clear consensus on users’ needs and indicators to help standard setters assess what disclosure requirements are appropriate; however, there was support for simplifying the requirements.
• Many believed that guidance on the application of materiality could be helpful and that changes to behaviours are necessary.
• Agreement that focusing on communication principles rather than compliance would improve disclosure.

Please click for:

• EFRAG press release
• Feedback Statement on Discussion Paper Towards a Disclosure Framework for the Notes on the EFRAG website.

The comment letter notes that the proposal "places additional emphasis on the definition of a business", and the support for further guidance on this concept is consistent with our earlier views on Exposure Draft ED/2012/6 Sale or Contribution of Assets between an Investor and its Associate or Joint Venture.

The IFRS Interpretations Committee is expected to discuss the definition of a 'business' at its forthcoming meeting on 14-15 May 2013.  Whilst an agenda for the meeting is yet to be published, the Committee has published two agenda papers on the issue that are expected to be considered at the meeting (links to the IASB website):

• The first paper provides an overview of the outreach activities undertaken by staff to identify challenges in distinguishing business combinations from asset acquisitions to help in identifying matters for which the IASB might be seeking feedback in any forthcoming Request for Information arising from the post-implementation review of IFRS 3, and asks for the Committee's feedback on whether this experience and information should be contributed to the project
• The second paper provides a detailed analysis of the outreach activities, including liaison with the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and Financial Accounting Foundation (FAF) (which is undertaking its own post-implementation review on its equivalent business combination requirements in FAS Statement 141R), and feedback received from interested parties across a number of industries including investment property, extractive industries, pharmaceuticals, banking, shipping and solar and wind farms.  It also includes a summary of various issues which could be brought to the attention of the IASB.

Click for access to the full comment letter.

The summary of the meeting includes the following reports:

Report of the Trustees’ Executive session

• First meeting of the newly-formed Accounting Standards Advisory Forum (ASAF)
  The Trustees were encouraged that the meeting had gone well, with a high quality level of debate.
• Funding of the IFRS Foundation
  The Trustees discussed various different approaches to putting in place a more longer-term funding arrangement.
• Recent developments in both the United States and Japan
  The Trustees noted the need to ensure that the question regarding a decision on domestic use in the US remains as an item on the SEC’s work programme. Developments in Japan seemed to indicate to the Trustees a speeding up in a positive way of the Japanese consideration of the adoption of IFRSs.
• Nominations
  The Trustees agreed to extend for a period of 9 months (with an option to extend to up to one year) the term of Tsuguoki (Aki) Fujinuma as Vice-Chairman of the Trustees.
• Education and content services
  The Trustees reviewed progress toward the development of an eIFRS 'app', subject to successful user testing.
• Constitution review
  Staff will begin preparations to complete the next review of the Constitution by 2015.
• Research programme
  The Trustees discussed plans to develop a research capability.

Meeting with the Monitoring Board

• Report of the Chairman of the IASB
  Hans Hoogervorst, Chairman of the IASB, provided the Trustees and the Monitoring Board with an update on the IASB’s activities including international engagement, progress on the four major outstanding convergence projects, and work on the conceptual framework project.
• Report of the Chairman of the Due Process Oversight Committee
  Scott Evans, Chairman of the Due Process Oversight Committee (DPOC) reported on the recent activities of the DPOC. Major projects are the revision of the Due Process Handbook including the development of a Due Process Protocol.
• Regional outreach activity
  As part of the Trustees’ meeting, the IFRS Foundation hosted a joint event with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) at which the Trustees and the leadership of the IASB met with representatives of key stakeholders to discuss issues under the theme The relationship between financial reporting and long-term investing.

The full summary of conclusion of the IFRS Foundation Trustees' meeting is available on the IASB website.

Topics discussed during the DPOC meeting were:

1. Update on technical activities — Updates were given on the progress of the major projects on the IASB’s work plan. Regarding insurance contracts, the DPOC affirmed its view that the IASB had met all the required due process steps for its upcoming exposure draft to be issued in the first half of 2013. Other major projects discussed were impairments, classification and measurement, leases and revenue recognition.

   In addition, the DPOC received updates on newer projects to the agenda, in particular, the conceptual framework project which the Accounting Standards Advisory Forum discussed during its 8-9 April 2013 meeting and will serve as the consultative group. Other newer projects to the agenda discussed were rate-regulated activities, bearer plants, and the research programme.

2. Due process ‘lifecycle’ review of upcoming hedge accounting guidance — a summary was given of the due process steps taken since 2008 on the hedge accounting project. The DPOC noted that it was satisfied with due process steps the IASB has completed, but will need to consider the decision made during the IASB’s April 2013 meeting before the IASB can proceed with the Ballot Draft of a new IFRS 9.
3. Progress on post-implementation review (PIR) of IFRS 8 — the DPOC reviewed the draft agenda papers on PIR that are to be used during discussions at the IASB April 2013 meeting. Topics reviewed were (1) sources of input to the IFRS 8 PIR, due process and next steps, (2) messages received and feedback summary, and (3) lessons learned about the PIR process.
4. Update on consultative groups — the DPOC reviewed (1) the IASB’s proposed composition of a new rate-regulated activities consultative group and (2) proposed change in membership to the financial instruments consultative group. The DPOC also agreed on a proposal to have a DPOC member observe (in person) a meeting of the major groups once a year and submit a report back to the Committee on the attendance and quality.
5. Update on operations
6. Review of correspondence — No new correspondence cases were submitted since the Committee’s previous meeting in January 2013.
7. Any other business

The DPOC is responsible for approving due process and overseeing the IASB’s compliance with due process, and reviewing the Trustees’ fulfilment of their oversight function in accordance with the Constitution of the IFRS Foundation.

A summary of the meeting is available on the IASB website.

The third issue of the newsletter summarises and comments on the tentative decisions reached at the March 2013 IASB meeting regarding the content of the forthcoming Discussion Paper. In addition, the newsletter summarises some initial views expressed by National Standard Setters in the EFRAG CFSS meeting of 3 April 2013, which was devoted to the preparation of the first meeting of the IFRS Accounting Standards Advisory Forum (ASAF) where the conceptual framework was the dominating topic.

Conceptual framework topics discussed in this issue of the newsletter are:

• the scope of the project,
• definition and recognition of elements,
• measurement,
• development and content of the Discussion Papern and
• debt/equity.

The joint European strategy on the conceptual framework includes issuing specific newsletters as new developments become available issuing bulletin reports on specific issues during the course of the project in an effort to stimulate debate that may be used in discussions with the IASB.

The new issue of the newsletter is available on the EFRAG website.

Issued July 2010, the exposure draft on insurance contracts provides guidance on a comprehensive framework, removes issues with existing practices (IFRS 4), and provides comparability across various markets.

The ‘reporting back’ documents cover the following proposals:

• Contracts with cash flows that vary with the returns on underlying items (including ‘participating’, ‘universal life’, ‘with profits’ and ‘unit-linked’ contracts)
• Accounting for reinsurance contracts

The ‘reporting back’ documents, along with other resources related to the exposure draft, are available on the IASB website.

In addition, click to view our:

• Insurance contract project page.
• Insurance webcasts.

The text agreed on at the beginning of April and made available now has been submitted to the Committee of Permanent Representatives (Comité des représentants permanents, COREPER) which has to agree to it.

The proposal aims at reducing the administrative burden on small companies in particular, increasing the clarity and comparability of financial statements and enhancing the transparency of payments to governments by the extractive industry and loggers of primary forest. Mandatory country-by-country is in fact one of the major changes introduced into the new Accounting Directive.

Subject to no further changes and legal-linguistic verification of all the language versions by Legal-linguists of European Parliament and European Council, the new Directive could be published in the Official Journal in June or July 2013. Member States will then be given two years to implement the Directive in national law.

The full text of the agreed compromise is available through the public register of Council documents.

The proposals in Conceptual Framework Exposure Draft 4 (CF–ED4) Conceptual Framework for General Purpose Financial Reporting by Public Sector Entities: Presentation in General Purpose Financial Reports, represent the fourth and final phase of the IPSASB Conceptual Framework project and follow on from an earlier Consultation Paper published in early 2012.

The first phase of the IPSASB's project was completed with the release of the first four chapters of the IPSASB Conceptual Framework project in January 2013, covering the role and authority of the framework, the objectives and users of general purpose financial reporting, qualitative characteristics of information included in general purpose financial reports, and the reporting entity. Exposure drafts dealing with the second and third phases of the project where issued in November 2012, covering the elements and recognition in financial statements, and the measurement of assets and liabilities in financial statements.

CF–ED4 explains the relationship between these other parts of the IPSASB Conceptual Framework and presentation concepts, doing so by proposing definitions of "presentation", "display" and "disclosure", and identifying three presentation decisions: selection, location and organisation.

The exposure draft explains that the concept of 'presentation' relates not only to how information is included within reports, but also which reports are necessary in addition to financial statements. Accordingly, it considers whether new reports are required, whether information should be moved between reports, and whether existing reports should be amalgamated in order to meet the objectives of financial information and qualitative characteristics.

The exposure draft considers 'displayed' information as conveying key messages, and so accordingly is kept concise and displayed prominently using techniques such as clear labelling, borders, tables and graphs. 'Disclosed information' then makes displayed information more useful through the provision of detail to assist in the understanding of it, but disclosed information is not considered a substitute for displayed information.

The document also explores decisions about what information needs to be reported, how information is selected for inclusion in a GFPR, the importance of location of information (both between reports and within each report), and how information should be organised.

CF–ED4 is open for comment until 15 August 2013. Click for IPSASB press release (link to IPSASB website).