Maintenance and Consistent Application: In 2017, the IFRS Interpretations Committee received a question about a particular commodity loan transaction and observed that the transaction may not be captured within the scope of any IFRS Standard. The staff recommend that the Board consider referring to commodity transactions as a potential project in its Request for Information (RFI) on the 2020 Agenda Consultation.

Agenda Consultation: The staff set out the plan for the 2020. They expect to publish the RFI in September, with a comment deadline of January 2021. After the Board has considered the feedback the work plan and feedback statement are expected to be published in Q4 2021.

Disclosure Initiative—Subsidiaries that are SMEs: In the January 2020 meeting, the Board agreed to move the project from the research programme to the standard-setting programme. The objective is to develop a reduced disclosure IFRS Standard that would apply on a voluntary basis to subsidiaries that are SMEs, adapted from the disclosure requirements of the IFRS for SMEs Standard. The staff expect to start drafting an ED or a DP in Q4 2020.

Rate-regulated Activities: The staff have been drafting the ED for the accounting model for regulatory assets and regulatory liabilities since last July. The staff are asking the Board to clarify whether some components included in the regulated rates in a period form part of total allowed compensation for the goods or services supplied by an entity in the same period or in a different period. In particular, the staff are seeking clarification about whether regulatory returns and performance incentives included in the regulated rates for a period form part of the total allowed compensation for to the goods or services supplied in the same period.

Management Commentary: The Board will continue its discussions about the objective of management commentary, which the staff recommend should be to support primary users in assessing an entity’s prospects of future cash flows and assessing management’s stewardship of the entity’s economic resources. The primary users are existing and potential investors, lenders and other creditors and they are expected to have a reasonable knowledge of business and economic activities. The staff will also introduce their thinking on developing disclosure objectives for various types of content to be included in management commentary.

Disclosure Initiative—Targeted Standards-level Review of Disclosures: The staff will ask permission to begin the balloting process on Exposure Draft (ED) Targeted Standards-level Review of Disclosures—Amendments to IAS 19 and IFRS 13. The staff recommend a comment period of 180 days.

Financial Instruments with Characteristics of Equity: At the December 2019 Board meeting, the Board discussed the staff’s preliminary analysis on how the fixed-for-fixed requirement in IAS 32 could be clarified. At this meeting the staff recommend that the Board articulate its foundation principle by stating that in a derivative on own equity that meets the fixed-for-fixed condition, the amount of functional currency units to be exchanged with each underlying equity instrument is fixed and does not vary other than (if applicable) with preservation adjustments and passage of time adjustments. The staff also set out recommendations for how the preservation and passage of time adjustments should be expressed. The staff will also present their plan for outreach with stakeholders on potential disclosures that can be developed as part of the FICE project.

Post-implementation review of IFRS 10, 11 and 12: The staff recommend that the Board proceed with the PIR and publish an RFI to gather more information about the application of these Standards.

Amendments to IFRS 17 Insurance Contracts: The staff recommend that the Board defer the effective date of IFRS 17 (incorporating the amendments) to annual reporting periods beginning on or after 1 January 2023 and extend the fixed expiry date of the temporary exemption from applying IFRS 9 in IFRS 4 to the same date. The staff expect that the amendments will be issued in the second quarter of 2020.

More information

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

The Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB) is following the review of the EU Non-Financial Reporting Directive closely and proposes eight changes to ensure that the Directive is fit for purpose to achieve Europe’s ambitious sustainable finance goals. Please click for further information on the CDSB website.

The CDSB and the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) have jointly released an environmental reporting handbook to help companies improve their disclosure in line with the EU Non-Financial Reporting Directive. The EU Environmental Reporting Handbook helps companies learn from their peers to better understand how to report in line with the Directive. Please click for further information on the CDSB website. 

The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) has launched the SASB Implementation Primer, an online resource for companies seeking to incorporate SASB standards into their core communications with investors. Please click to access the press release and the implementation primer on the SASB website.

The Integrated Reporting Committee (IRC) of South Africa has updated its starter’s guide initially published in 2014, to provide organisations with practical suggestions on preparing an integrated report. The guide is aligned with the King IV Report on Corporate Governance for South Africa and presents updated examples five years after publication of the International <IR> Framework. Please click to access Preparing an Integrated Report – A Starter’s Guide (Updated) on the IRC website.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has set up a Sustainability Accounting Standards Board to help companies in achieving sustainable development goals. The Board will set standards that will establish disclosure requirements in line with the sustainable development goals of the United Nations. The initial composition of the Board is available here.

Deloitte Norway studied the annual and sustainability reports of the 50 largest companies headquartered in the country, analysing their maturity in terms of integrated reporting and sustainability reporting. Greenwashing or measurable results? can be accessed here.

Deloitte UK has commented on Advancing Nature-related Financial Disclosures and use of the CDSB Framework published by the CDSB. Deloitte encourages the CDSB to work with others to push with urgency for consolidation and harmonisation of standards and frameworks, in order to have one definitive global standard on climate reporting. Please click to access the comment letter here.

The International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) is consulting on proposed guidance Extended External Reporting Assurance. The purpose of the guidance is to promote consistent high-quality application of ISAE 3000 so as to strengthen the influence of EER assurance engagements on the quality of EER reports, enhance user trust in the resulting assurance reports, and engender greater confidence in the credibility of, trust in and reliance upon EER reports by their intended users. Please click for more information on the IAASB website.

Decisions on submitted papers will be made by 20 July 2020. Please click for the press release and more information on the research forum on the IASB website.

The Q&A addresses the application of the undue cost or effort exemption for investment property on the date of transition to the IFRS for SMEs. The Q&A concludes that additional cost or effort due to the elapse of time between the date of transition and the date of preparing the first IFRS for SMEs financial statements is not considered.

Please click to access the Q&A through the press release on the IASB website.

Below is an analysis of all changes made to the work plan since our last analysis on 28 February 2020.

Standard-setting projects

• No changes

Maintenance projects

• No changes - the work plan still shows final amendments to IAS 16 regarding proceeds before intended use to be expected in "March 2020"

Research projects

• Goodwill and impairment — A discussion paper was published earlier this week; the feedback received will be discussed in the second half of 2020
• Post-implementation Review of IFRS 10, IFRS 11 and IFRS 12 — due to the reduced agenda for the March meeting, the research review has been rescheduled to April 2020 (previously March 2020)

Other projects

• IFRS Taxonomy 2019 — Update 1 Interest Rate Benchmark Reform (Amendments to IFRS 9, IAS 39 and IFRS 7) was published earlier this week and has therefore been removed from the work plan.

The above is a faithful comparison of the IASB work plan at 28 February 2020 and at 21 March 2020. For access to the current IASB work plan at any time, please click here.

Please click to access the updated alignment dashboard prepared for the March 2020 IPSASB meeting on the IPSASB website.

In this context, please also so our 2020 edition of IPSAS in your pocket published in January.