Pre-meeting summaries for the December IASB meeting

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06 Dec, 2019

The IASB will meet in London on 11–12 December 2019 to discuss nine 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.

Amendments to IFRS 17 Insurance Contracts: The Board is continuing its discussions about ED/2019/4 Amendments to IFRS 17. At this meeting the staff are recommending that the Board make decisions about the amendments that the staff identified in November did not require significant redeliberation. The staff have also made recommendations about insurance acquisition cash flows and reinsurance contracts held.

IBOR Reform and the Effects on Financial Reporting: The staff recommend that IFRS 9 and IAS 39 be amended to allow entities to continue a hedging relationship (i.e. no derecognition) when modifications to the interest rate benchmark on which a financial instrument’s contractual cash flows are based are a direct consequence of IBOR reform and are done on an economically equivalent basis.

Accounting Policies and Accounting Estimates (Amendments to IAS 8): The staff are requesting permission to prepare the final amendments to IAS 8. They will apply to annual periods beginning on or after 1 January 2022 and are expected to be published in the first half of 2020.

Implementation matters:

Onerous Contracts: The Staff are requesting permission to prepare the final amendments to IAS 37. They will apply to annual periods beginning on or after 1 January 2022 and are expected to be published in the first half of 2020.

Annual Improvements: The Staff are requesting permission to prepare the final amendments for annual improvements to IFRS 1 (subsidiary as a first-time adopter), IFRS 9 (fees Included in the ‘10 per cent’ test for derecognition of financial liabilities and IAS 41 (taxation in fair value measurements). The amendments will apply to annual periods beginning on or after 1 January 2022. The amendment to the illustrative example accompanying IFRS 16 takes effect when it is published. Staff do not expect to publish the package of amendments until the second quarter of 2020.

IFRS 3 reference to the Conceptual Framework: The staff recommend that the Board confirm the proposal to add, within the section headed ‘Exception to the recognition principle’, an exception to the recognition principle for liabilities and contingent liabilities within the scope of IAS 37 or IFRIC 21. They also recommend that the Board clarify that updating the reference to the Conceptual Framework does not change IFRS 3 requirements for recognition of assets and liabilities whose fair values are subject to measurement uncertainty.

Subsidiaries that are SMEs: The Chair of the Australian Accounting Standards Board will give a presentation on their proposal for a simplified disclosure standard, similar to the one the IASB is looking to develop. (It is an information-only session).

Business Combinations under Common Control: The staff recommend that the acquisition method, as set out in IFRS 3, be required for transactions that affect non-controlling shareholders of the receiving entity. However, the receiving entity should recognise any excess of the fair value of the acquired identifiable net assets over the consideration transferred as an increase in the receiving entity’s equity (contribution), not as a gain on a bargain purchase in profit or loss.

SME Standard review and update: The staff are seeking approval to prepare the Request for Information, with a comment period of 180 days. 

Financial Instruments with Characteristics of Equity: The Board will begin its discussion about classifying financial instruments that will, or may, be settled in the issuer’s own equity instruments (both derivative and non-derivative instruments). In particular, the staff will explore what clarifications could be made to the underlying principle of the fixed-for-fixed condition.

More information

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

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