Mr Kabureck began by discussing how the December 2014 amendments to IAS 1 marked the ‘first foray into addressing disclosure materiality’. He stated IFRS disclosure requirements used phrases, such as ‘At a minimum an entity shall disclose . . .’, which were interpreted in practice in a way that was not intended by the IASB and actions were taken to clarify that materiality concept always overrules these certain phrases.

Next, he discussed key messages in the September 2017 IFRS Practice Statement Making Materiality Judgements, which provides an outline for making materiality judgements and assessing their implications. He noted that the Practice Statement helps preparers define who the target audience for a company’s financial reporting is and what information is needed. Also, the Practice Statement makes it clear that ‘materiality is assessed in the context of the financial statement taken as a whole…’.

Further, Mr Kabureck commented on the revised definition of ‘material’ issued in October 2018. The amendments conformed the definition of material among various IFRS Standards. He mentioned that the revision to the definition from ‘could influence’ to ‘could reasonably be expected to influence’ provided a more accurate representation of the Board’s intention.

Lastly, he expressed the need to analyse how Standards are drafted and how to amend certain Standards with known issues.

For more information, see the article on the IASB’s website.