The amendments deal with issues affecting financial reporting in the period before the replacement of an existing interest rate benchmark with an alternative interest rate and address the implications for specific hedge accounting requirements in IFRS 9 Financial Instruments and IAS 39 Financial Instruments: Recognition and Measurement, which require forward-looking analysis. There are also amendments to IFRS 7 Financial Instruments: Disclosures regarding additional disclosures around uncertainty arising from the interest rate benchmark reform.

EFRAG recommends the endorsement of the Amendments. EFRAG’s assessment is that the Amendments meet all the technical endorsement criteria of the IAS Regulation and are conducive to the European public good.

A press release and the endorsement advice letter to the European Commission are available on the EFRAG website. EFRAG has also updated its endorsement status report.

The report includes data from more than 170 IFAC member organisations. The data shows that more than 90% of the jurisdictions examined have adopted or partially adopted IFRSs. Most jurisdictions adopt IFRSs by directly referring to the standards or working to eliminate differences to better align national standards with the international ones. Only 9% do not use international standards as a reference.

The report notes that IFAC has more than 120 member organisations that operate in jurisdictions where English is not an official or a business language. In these jurisdictions, access to local language standards translations is one of the main challenges to successful adoption and implementation of the international standards.

Please click to access the full report on the IFAC website.

The proposed update includes elements to reflect the new disclosure requirements introduced by the amendments to IFRS 9, IAS 39 and IFRS 7, issued by the Board on 26 September 2019.

For more information, see the press release and proposed update on the IASB’s website. Comments are requested by 13 December 2019.

The Board will discuss the following:

• Implementation matters — Property, plant and equipment, onerous contracts, sale of a single asset entity containing real estate, September 2019 IFRIC update
• Business com­bi­na­tion under common control
• Management commentary
• Amendments to IFRS 17 Insurance Contracts
• IBOR reform and the effects on financial reporting
• Financial instruments with characteristics of equity
• Dynamic risk management
• SME standard review and update
• Accounting policies and accounting estimates
• Im­ple­men­ta­tion matters — Property, plant and equipment: Proceeds before intended use (amend­ments to IAS 16)

The full agenda for the meeting can be found here. We will post any updates to the agenda, our com­pre­hen­sive pre-meet­ing summaries as well as observer notes from the meeting on this page as they become available.

For both agenda items, background notes have been prepared by the UNCTAD secretariat to facilitate deliberations. The papers can be downloaded from the UNCTAD website:

• Practical implementation, including measurement, of core indicators for entity reporting on the contribution towards the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals: Review of case studies
• Review of current developments in international standards of accounting and reporting in the public and private sectors

General information on the session including a provisional agenda for the meeting is available here.

Before the meeting, there will be a workshop on "Practical implementation of climate-related financial disclosures and their relationship to the SDGs" on 29 October 2019. More information is available here.

Further publication of interest in the context of the meeting are available on the UNCTAD website:

• International Accounting and Reporting Issues: 2018 Review
• Guidance on core indicators for entity reporting on contribution towards implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals

The conference will include a keynote speech from Michel Prada (former chairman of the IFRS Foundation Trustees and of the French regulator Autorité des Marchés Financiers) and two high-level panels on principles-based standards and regulation.

Please click for more information and registration details on the EFRAG website.

The reports analyse the disclosures in a sample of companies’ reports and provide examples of better practice.

The FRC concluded that IFRS 15 disclosures could be improved especially with respect to

• improving the descriptions of accounting policies and ensuring that these are tailored to their own particular circumstances; and
• providing more detailed information about the judgements significantly affecting the amount and timing of revenue.

In connection with IFRS 9 the FRC found that there was still room for companies to improve disclosures by

• analysing the credit quality of trade receivables by non-banking companies; and
• providing details of the indicators of a significant increase in credit risk particularly by the smaller banks.

As regards IAS 36 and the impairment of non-financial assets, the FRC encourage companies to pay greater attention to:

• providing relevant information around significant judgements and key assumptions made in estimating the recoverable amount of assets and cash-generating units;
• explaining the sensitivity to changes in key assumptions, where reasonably possible changes could give rise to impairment of goodwill or material further adjustments to already-impaired assets. 

Please click for the following additional information on the FRC website:

• Press release
• IFRS 9 thematic review
• IFRS 15 thematic review
• Impairment of non-financial assets thematic review

The research report assesses whether current financial reporting requirements for parent/subsidiary structures meet user needs in a cost-effective way.

The report concludes that users most dependent on general purpose financial statements in the for-profit sector are generally satisfied with summary financial information about parent entities which is currently required in the consolidated financial statements. However, they state that they need more information disclosed about subsidiaries in consolidated financial statements than is currently required, particularly if complete sets of subsidiary financial statements were to be no longer available to them. Some also state that they need to know whether other financial statements pertaining to group entities (including the group itself) exist and, where they do, those users need to see cross-references to them.

While the report is mainly intended to provide input to the process through which the AASB will work with regulators, users, preparers and other stakeholders in Australia, the users’ views on the additional disclosures needed will also provide important input to the IFRS 12 Disclosure of Interests in Other Entities post-implementation review of the IASB.

Please click to access the research report on the AASB website.

Both join as the FRC is making progress to transition into the new regulator, the Audit, Reporting and Governance Authority (ARGA), following the recommendations of the Kingman Review.

Simon Dingemans will replace Sir Win Bischoff and Sir Jon Thompson will replace Stephen Haddrill.

The full press release is available on the FRC website.

The agenda for the DPOC meeting is summarised below.

Agenda papers for the meeting are available on the IASB's website.