Pre-meeting summaries for the December IASB meeting

  • IASB meeting (blue) Image

07 Dec, 2018

The IASB is meeting in London on 11–13 December 2018 to discuss twelve topics. We have posted our pre-meeting summaries for the meeting that allow you to follow the IASB’s decision making more closely. For each topic to be discussed we summarise the agenda papers made available by the IASB staff and point out the main issues to be discussed by the IASB and the staff recommendations.

Tuesday 11 December

On Tuesday afternoon the IASB has an education session for IFRS 17 Insurance Contracts, ahead of the decision-making session on Thursday.

Wednesday 12 December

The Board will consider a recommendation to updating a reference to the Conceptual Framework in IFRS 3.

In the project on Dynamic Risk Management the staff recommend that that an entity can apply the DRM accounting model if two criteria are met. There must be an economic relationship between the target profile, the asset profile and the derivatives designated within the DRM model and any designation must not reflect an imbalance that would create misalignment that could result in an accounting outcome inconsistent with the purpose of the DRM accounting model.

For Business Combinations under Common Control, the Board is developing an approach based on the acquisition method set out in IFRS 3 Business Combinations that would be required for transactions that affect non-controlling interests. The staff think that this should be limited to entities with equity instruments that are traded in a public market and are recommending that the Board explore this approach.

For the Primary Financial Statements project, the staff are recommending that the Board prohibit the use of columns to present information about MPMs in the statement(s) of financial performance. They are also recommending that the Board describe, rather than define, EBITDA and add it to the list of measures that are not considered to be MPMs, and update its decision on EBIT, clarifying that using the EBIT label for performance measures included in the financial statements is potentially misleading.

The staff is recommending that the Board to move the IBOR project to its standard-setting programme and focus on issues affecting financial reporting leading up to IBOR reform and when the reform is enacted.

The staff will also give updates on the projects on Provisions and Pensions Benefits that Depend on Asset Returns as well as the Research Programme.

Thursday 13 December

At the October 2018 meeting, the Board discussed concerns and implementation challenges raised by stakeholders about the requirements in IFRS 17 Insurance Contracts. At this meeting the Board will consider 12 of those issues. The staff are recommending that the Board amend IFRS 17 for presentation of insurance contracts on the statement of financial position but not to make amendments for the other issues. The remaining nine topics will be considered at a future meeting.

In the Disclosure Initiative the staff recommend that the Board amend paragraphs 117-124 of IAS 1 to require entities to disclose their material accounting policies rather than their significant accounting policies. This amendment would be issued together with the guidance and examples being developed for inclusion in the Materiality Practice Statement.

In the Rate-regulated Activities project the Board will consider staff recommendations relating to the discount rate to be used when measuring regulatory timing differences.

More information

Our pre-meeting summaries are available on our December meeting note page and will be supplemented with our popular meeting notes after the meeting.

Correction list for hyphenation

These words serve as exceptions. Once entered, they are only hyphenated at the specified hyphenation points. Each word should be on a separate line.