The webinar will cover:

• Findings from the Financial Reporting Council’s (FRC’s) Annual review of corporate governance and reporting 2018/19 and recent thematic reviews
• Important aspects relating to new accounting standards and other regulatory developments affecting 2019/20 annual reports
• The impact of wider political and economic factors

Although aimed primarily at IFRS reporters, the topics and practical tips covered in the webinar will also be relevant to larger entities reporting under UK GAAP.

Further details are available on the ICAEW website.

Alexsandro Broedel is Group Executive Finance Director and Investor Relations Head at Itau Unibanco in Brazil.

Joanna Perry holds a variety of senior non-executive positions for both public and private organisations in New Zealand and is serving the last few weeks of her second term as Chair of the IFRS Advisory Council.

Maria Theofilaktidis is Executive Vice-President, Chief Compliance Officer and Head of Enterprise Risk for The Bank of Nova Scotia.

In addition, the current IFRS Foundation Trustees Else Bos, Su-Keun Kwak, and Guangyao Zhu have been reappointed to serve a second three-year term, also beginning on 1 January 2020.

For more information, see the press release on the IASB's website.

The topics discussed at the meeting included:

• Rate regulated activities.
• Post-implementation review of IFRS 10, IFRS 11, and IFRS 12.
• Agenda consultation.

The next meeting will be held on 26 March 2020.

For more in­for­ma­tion, see the meeting page and the meeting summary on the IASB's website.

The review identified that there are a number of areas where disclosure could be improved. Notwithstanding that half-yearly disclosures are less extensive than those of a full year, the FRC were of the opinion that “some companies did not sufficiently explain the impact of adopting IFRS 16”. The FRC expects that disclosures in full year reports will be more comprehensive.

The FRC’s key findings were that the following disclosures could be improved:

• information about key judgements made on adopting the new standard, explaining the specific judgements made and the effect on the accounts;
• for modified retrospective adopters:
  • clearer communication of transition choices;
  • better explanations of the difference between the IAS 17 commitments and the IFRS 16 lease liability; and
  • clarification that alternative performance measures have not been restated and where new APMs are used that disclosure is consistent with ESMA’s Guidelines.

The FRC indicates that the best disclosures were those that were specific to the entity. Some examples of disclosure from interim accounts that the FRC considers good are provided in the report.

The FRC comments:

We encourage companies to carefully consider the findings of this review when determining the extent of disclosures included within their next annual reports. Companies should aim to ensure not only that mandatory disclosure requirements have been met, but that they have addressed the disclosure objective of the standard. Starting with this objective will go a long way to ensuring that readers understand the impact of IFRS 16 on the company.

A press release and the full thematic review are available on the FRC website.

The report sets out the work that the FRC has undertaken in the last year to drive the delivery of consistent, high quality audit by UK firms, and address the risks that stand in the way of that.

The report covers:

• Audit quality and the FRC’s response. This includes:
  • FRC monitoring results;
  • FRC enforcement;
  • Audit firm monitoring and supervision;
  • Audit monitoring of non-public interest entity audits; and
  • Regulatory supervisory body enforcement.
• A section on international influence and future developments.
• A number of appendices including the approach taken to monitor audit quality and the results for the seven biggest firms

Key findings from the report are:

• Audit quality is not reaching the standards that the FRC expects. Results of the audit quality inspection work carried out by the FRC’s Audit Quality Review (AQR) team for 2018/19 indicated that 75% (73% in 2017/18) of FTSE 350 audits reviewed from the major audit firms were assessed as “good” or “requiring limited improvements”. No firms achieved the FRC’s audit quality target for 90% of FTSE 350 audits to have “no more than limited improvements” by 2018/19.
• Auditors “struggle” to sufficiently challenge management in areas such as long-term contracts, goodwill impairment and the valuation of financial instruments.
• “Routine procedures” when auditing revenue are not being performed.
• With respect to work on internal controls, the FRC’s work indicated that a number of auditors “were not properly identifying relevant controls in areas of significant risk or were not adapting their audit procedures sufficiently when controls were found to be deficient”.
• “Inconsistent work” on the front half of annual reports which did not “always meet the requirements of Auditing Standards”.
• Improvements are required in firms’ root-cause analysis and response procedures.

A press release and the full report are available on the FRC website.

Both Andrew and Colin's term begins on 1 November 2019.

The press release can be found on the FRC website here.

Mr Hooger­vorst began with an overview of the PFS project and provided comments related to new subtotals, such as operating profit and profit before financing and tax. He also discussed the need for greater transparency and discipline in the use of non-GAAP measures.

Next, Mr Hooger­vorst commented on man­age­ment com­men­tary to provide broader financial in­for­ma­tion, such as the impact of in­tan­gi­ble assets. In addition, the project will revise the Practice Statement to accommodate the increase in interest in sustainability reporting.

Lastly, he agreed with the Eumedion’s green paper, Towards a global standard-setter for non-financial reporting, which called for the need for consolidation in non-financial reporting.

For more in­for­ma­tion, see the tran­script of his speech on the IASB’s website.

The first reporting topic project will consider what users want from business model and strategy disclosures and how companies might best communicate the longer-term.  The scope of the project is likely to: 

• explore how companies develop, monitor and communicate their business model and strategy;
• examine how companies include a longer-term focus in their reporting;
• consider how companies communicate uncertainty in their disclosures;
• analyse how investors use this information in their decision-making process and identify whether emerging reporting meets investor needs;
• discuss which areas of reporting are most challenging for companies; 
• consider the extent to which UK companies can learn lessons from emerging international reporting practice; and 
• highlight best practice in current company reporting. 

A final report is likely to be published in autumn 2020.

Please click for more information on the FRC website.

The meeting saw the pre­sen­ta­tion on four academic papers, responses by academics and stan­dard-set­ters as well as a general dis­cus­sion with the audience. In addition, two case studies were discussed during breakout sessions.

For more information, see the press release and access the slides and audio recordings on the IASB’s website.

The European Commission (EC) has published a final report on EU Climate Benchmarks and Benchmarks’ ESG Disclosures by its Technical Expert Group (TEG) on Sustainable Finance. The report recommends a set of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) disclosure requirements, including the standard format to be used for the reporting. The final report and supporting documents are available here.

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is inviting companies and stakeholders to join a webinar on 5 December to discuss the future of reporting on responsible minerals sourcing. More information and access to the report Advancing Reporting on Responsible Minerals Sourcing the webinar builds on is available on the GRI website.

Deloitte's Annual report insights 2019, based on reports from 100 UK companies, reveals that companies are increasingly going beyond financial drivers and focusing on ‘success factors’ such as societal and environmental impacts. Please click to access the report here.

The CFA Society Denmark has published ESG key figures in the annual report that includes 15 proposals for standard ESG key figures for companies' environmental and climate impact and for their social and management commitment, which large Danish companies are invited to include in the annual report. The report is also available in an English language version and can be accessed here.

GRI has signed a collaboration agreement with the Indonesian Government that commits to support and provide the reporting frameworks for the country’s commitments to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Aim of the agreement is to promote SDG reporting by publicly listed companies by using the GRI Standards. Please see the press release on the GRI website.

GRI also announces that the three universal standards and all 33 topic-specific standards have been published in Italian and are now freely available for any Italian speaking organisation to download and use. Please click for more information on the GRI website.

The Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB) announces that its TCFD Implementation Guide is now also available in a Japanese translation. Please click for more information on the CDSB website.

The United Nations Sustainable Stock Exchanges (SSE) initiative and the World Federation of Exchanges (WFE) have signed an exchange of letters formalising how the two organisations will work together in the future. The exchange of letters also outlines potential areas of further collaboration including building capacity and providing technical assistance to stock exchanges on ESG disclosure. Please click for more information on the SSE website.

The SSE member Luxembourg Stock Exchange (LuxSE) has published a new set of guidelines for reporting ESG information to investors. Please click for more information on the SSE website.