November

Seventh IASB research forum — recordings available

05 Nov, 2020

The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) hosted its seventh Research Forum on 2–3 November 2020 as a virtual conference. Recordings of the individual sessions are now available on the IASB website.

The forum saw the presentation of four academic papers, followed by a responses of an academic and of an IASB/NNS representative, and two panel discussions around research opportunities related to IFRS 9 and to IFRS 15. The audience was invited to participate in the discussions. The recordings are now available on the IASB website.

Summary of the October 2020 ITCG meeting

04 Nov, 2020

The IASB has published a summary of the IFRS Taxonomy Consultative Group (ITCG) meeting held on 7 October 2020.

The ITCG discussed the following:

  • IFRS Taxonomy content — Disclosure of early application of new or amended IFRSs

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

Summary of the October 2020 ASAF meeting now available

03 Nov, 2020

The IASB staff have published a summary of the Accounting Standards Advisory Forum (ASAF) meeting held via remote participation on 2 October 2020.

The topics covered during the meeting were the following (numbers in brackets are references to the corresponding paragraphs of the summary):

  • Goodwill and impairment (1–9): The ASAF discussed the initial feedback on the discussion paper from their stakeholders, and how that feedback compared to what the Board has heard so far. In addition, the ASAF members outlined their plans for outreach and fieldwork to stimulate feedback to the discussion paper.
  • Business combinations under common control (10–15): The ASAF was given an update on the outreach plans for the forthcoming discussion paper. The ASAF members provided feedback on the proposed focus in the outreach, stakeholder events in their jurisdictions, and on how to facilitate effective stakeholder engagement.
  • Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting (16–19): The FASB provided an overview of its proposed Chapter 4 Elements of Financial Statements of FASB Concepts Statement No. 8 Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting.
  • Update and agenda planning (20–23): The ASAF members discussed the Board’s current work plan and planned topics for the December 2020 ASAF meeting.

A full summary of the meeting is available on the IASB's website.

Summary of the October 2020 joint CMAC-GPF meeting

24 Nov, 2020

Representatives from the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) met with both the Capital Markets Advisory Council (CMAC) and Global Preparers Forum (GPF) by video conference on 8 October 2020. Notes and recordings from the joint meeting have now been released.

The topics discussed at the meeting included:

  • Business combinations — Disclosures, goodwill and impairment
  • Primary financial statements

There was also an update session on COVID-19 related matters.

The meeting summary on the IASB website only covers the first two topics, however, the meeting page offers recordings of all three topics.

The next CMAC meeting will be held on 11 March 2021 .The next GPF meeting is proposed to be held on 12 March 2021.

Trustees appoint Andreas Barckow to succeed Hans Hoogervorst

12 Nov, 2020

The Trustees of the IFRS Foundation, the oversight body of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), today announced the appointment of Prof Dr Andreas Barckow as next chair of the IASB.

Dr Barckow, currently the President of the Accounting Standards Committee of Germany (ACSG), will succeed Hans Hoogervorst on his retirement as chair of the IASB at the end of June 2021.

Dr Barckow, a former Deloitte Partner, has been an active participant in numerous advisory bodies to the IFRS Foundation and the IASB, including membership of the IASB’s Accounting Standards Advisory Forum (ASAF) and the IFRS Advisory Council, and is a highly recognised expert on IFRSs at national, European and international level. He will step down from all his present positions in order to join the IASB.

A biography of Dr Barckow and statements on the appointment are available in the IASB's press release and the press release on the ACSG website.

The International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) has published a Statement of the IFRS Foundation Monitoring Board on the appointment of Mr. Andreas Barckow as the next Chair of the IASB welcoming the appointment.

UK Endorsement Board recruitment commences

19 Nov, 2020

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has commenced recruitment of independent Board Members for the UK Endorsement Board.

Further information is available on the FRC website.

UK to make TCFD aligned disclosures mandatory by 2025

12 Nov, 2020

The Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has announced the intention to make Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) aligned disclosures fully mandatory across the economy by 2025. This marks an important step in establishing consistent global climate and sustainability reporting standards.

Investors and stakeholders now expect climate-related disclosures in annual reports and financial statements. Recent Deloitte research shows that 90% of companies referred to climate change in their 2019 annual report, with 64% referring to the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).

HM Treasury has published the interim report of the UK’s Joint Government-Regulator TCFD Taskforce and accompanying roadmap which sets out an indicative path to mandatory TCFD reporting by 2025 – towards comprehensive and high-quality climate-related risk disclosure across the UK economy. The Taskforce was set up after the Government’s Green Finance Strategy was released last year to explore the most effective approach to implementing the recommendations of the TCFD.

The roadmap document notes that comparability of disclosures should ‘optimally be achieved through international standards for climate-related and other sustainability disclosures’. The TCFD Taskforce therefore ‘strongly supports’ the IFRS Foundation’s ‘proposal to create a new, global Sustainability Standards Board, as well as complementary work underway on harmonisation by an alliance of voluntary standard-setting organisations’.

Support for the IFRS Foundation’s proposals has also come from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and other UK regulators such as the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Financial Reporting Council (FRC). In a joint statement  (link to HM Tresaury website) they indicate that the proposals ‘are an important and timely step as a contribution to addressing the climate emergency’. They say:

We believe that the creation of a new board, within the IFRS Foundation structure, would allow the effective exploration, reconciliation and resolution of ideas and challenges that are relevant to reporting of material sustainability factors (that are most relevant to investors and other market participants) in the first instance, and reporting of wider sustainability impacts in the longer term. We believe that establishing an SSB alongside the IASB will promote much-needed integration of financial and non-financial reporting, within a common architecture. A transparent and robust governance structure should, in our view, be a pre-requisite for establishing an independent and impartial sustainability reporting standard setter. For these reasons, the Foundation is very well-placed to lead this conversation and work, and we are grateful that it has done so.

The progress is strengthened by the commitment of the FCA to introduce TCFD for premium listed companies in 2021, and to consult in the first half of 2021 on extending the scope of these rules, including for asset managers, life insurers and pension providers. This commitment was set out in a speech ‘Green Horizon Summit: Rising to the Climate Challenge’ by FCA CEO, Nikhil Rathi.

A new FCA Listing Rule will be introduced on a 'comply or explain' basis and the FCA generally expects companies to be able to comply. As well as consulting on further extending the Rule to a wider scope of listed insurers, the FCA will also consider further tightening the rule, moving from 'comply or explain' to mandatory disclosure. The FCA will also, in the first half of next year, release proposed TCFD implementation measures for asset managers, life insurers and FCA-regulated pension providers. It aims to bring in rules for the largest firms by 2022.

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Until the end of March 2021, all meetings to be held remotely

16 Nov, 2020

Since early March, all meetings of the advisory and consultative groups of the IFRS Foundation have been held remotely, with observers and participants alike videoconferencing in. The Foundation has now decided to extend with this process for all meetings of advisory and consultative groups until the end of March 2021.

The IFRS Foundation disclosed this decision in its Coronavirus update.

Updated IASB work plan — Analysis (November 2020 meeting)

20 Nov, 2020

Following the IASB's November 2020 meeting, we have analysed the IASB work plan to see what changes have resulted from the meeting and other developments since the work plan was last revised in October 2020.

Below is an analysis of all changes made to the work plan since our last analysis on 31 October 2020.

Standard-setting projects

  • Disclosure initiative — Subsidiaries that are SMEs — the decision of whether to issue a discussion paper or an exposure draft is now expected in January 2021 (previously December 2020)
  • Management commentary — the issuance of an exposure draft is now expected in the second quarter of 2021 (previously first half of 2021)
  • Rate-regulated activities — the issuance of an exposure draft is now expected in January 2021 (previously first quarter of 2021)

Maintenance projects

  • Accounting policies and accounting estimates (Amendments to IAS 8) — the issuance of final amendments is now expected in the first quarter of 2021 (previously December 2020)
  • Deferred tax related to assets and liabilities arising from a single transaction — the issuance of final amendments is now expected in the second quarter of 2021 (previously no date given)
  • Disclosure initiative — Accounting policies — the issuance of final amendments is now expected in the first quarter of 2021 (previously December 2020)

Research projects

  • Dynamic risk management — the feedback on the core model is expected to be discussed in the second quarter of 2021 (previously first half of 2021)
  • Extractive activities — a decision on the project direction is now expected in the first quarter of 2021 (previously first half of 2021)
  • Post-implementation review of IFRS 9 — newly added to the work plan; next stept in the project will be the issuance of a request for information (no date given)

Other projects

  • IFRS Taxonomy Update — Amendments to IAS 1, IAS 8 and IFRS Practice Statement 2 — the issuance of a proposed IFRS Taxonomy Update is now expected in the first quarter of 2021 (previously December 2020)
  • IFRS Taxonomy Update — Common practice (IAS 19) — the expected date for the issuance of a proposed IFRS Taxonomy Update has been dropped, however, the IASB announced in a press release that the proposed IFRS Taxonomy Update will be issued on 24 November 2020
  • IFRS Taxonomy Update — Interest Rate Benchmark Reform — Phase 2 — the feedback on the proposed IFRS Taxonomy Update has been discussed and a final IFRS Taxonomy Update is now expected in December 2020

The above is a faithful comparison of the IASB work plan at 31 October 2020 and 20 November 2020. For access to the current IASB work plan at any time, please click here.

Updated IPSAS-IFRS alignment dashboard

19 Nov, 2020

The International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (IPSASB), which develops the International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) for financial reporting by governments and other public sector entities, has released an updated IPSAS-IFRS alignment dashboard showing how far individual IPSAS are aligned with corresponding IFRSs.

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

Deloitte offers a summary of the provisions of all IPSAS in our IPSAS in your pocket publication.

We comment on the tentative agenda decision on sale and leaseback in a corporate wrapper

24 Nov, 2020

We have commented on the IFRS Interpretations Committee's publication in the September 2020 'IFRIC Update' of the tentative decision not to take onto the Committee’s agenda the request for clarification on the applicability of the sale and leaseback requirements in IFRS 16 to a transaction in which an entity sells its equity interest in a subsidiary that holds one asset and leases that asset back.

We agree that the Committee’s conclusions as laid out in the agenda decision reflect the requirements of IFRS 10 and IFRS 16 in relation to the specific fact pattern presented therein. However, we strongly suggest that in addition to this decision the Board takes on a broader project to address the treatment of the sale of corporate wrappers, in particular when, if ever, these should be accounted for as sales of assets rather than subsidiaries.

Please click to download the full comment letter here.

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