AASB are currently surveying preparers/auditors of financial statements about IAS 38 Intangible Assets. They would be very interested in hearing views from the UK. Note references in the survey to AASB 138 can be read as references to IAS 38.  

The survey can be accessed from here.

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The guides, which build on those published in June 2020, are focussed on risk management, scenario analysis, disclosure, innovation, and climate data and metrics. 

A press release and guides are avail­able on the FCA website.

The agenda items for discussion are as follows:

• Due Process Handbook
• IFRS 17 – Draft Endorsement Criteria Assessment
• Subsidiaries without Public Accountability: Disclosures - Project Implementation Plan
• Research on Subsequent Measurement of Goodwill - Project Implementation Plan

The meeting agenda and papers and details of how to register are available on the UKEB website.

The recording of the UK Endorsement Board 28 October 2021 meeting is also available on the UKEB website.

The survey seeks to gather stakeholder feedback on the changes to disclosure proposed in the Exposure Draft. 

The survey is open until 12 November 2021. 

The survey can be accessed on the UKEB website here.

The following topics are on the agenda:

Goodwill and Impairment: The IASB will begin making decisions related to the package of disclosures about business combinations. The staff recommend that the Board confirm that the information about the benefits an entity’s management expect from a business combination can be required in the financial statements. The Board will also consider the practical concerns raised by respondents with regard to the proposed package of additional disclosures about business combinations in financial statements, particularly commercial sensitivity of the information, the potentially forward-looking nature of the information, the auditability of the information, and the integration of the information.

Second Comprehensive Review of the IFRS for SMEs Standard: The Board will continue to deliberate specific sections of the IFRS for SMEs Standard that could be aligned with IFRS requirements. The staff recommend that the Board: remove the option to apply the recognition and measurement requirements in full IFRS Standards for financial instruments; retain the existing hedge accounting requirements unchanged (i.e. not align with IFRS 9); align the definition of, and guidance on, fair value with IFRS 13; not align with IFRS 14 but revisit this topic once the Board has completed its project on rate-regulated activities; and align the requirements with IFRS 15.

Post-implementation review (PIR) of IFRS 10-12: The IASB is considering feedback gathered from its PIR, which the staff find supports the conclusion that IFRS 10, 11 and 12 are working as intended. They have, however, identified some topics which the Board may wish to consider for further action when developing its work plan for 2022-2026: (high priority) investment entities and collaborative arrangements outside the scope of IFRS 11; (medium priority) definition of an investment entity and corporate wrappers; and (low priority) transactions that change the relationship between an investor and an investee.  The staff are also looking at the disclosure of interests in other entities and assisting the application of IFRS 10 and IFRS 11, which they will bring back to a future meeting. The staff will then prepare a “Report and Feedback Statement” on the PIR.

Equity Method: The staff are updating the IASB on questions identified applying the equity method. The staff have had difficulties identifying underlying principles when the application questions involve the application of IAS 28 paragraph 26 (i.e. the interaction of the principles in IAS 28 with other IFRS Standards, such as IFRS 3 and IFRS 10). The staff plan to undertake more research.

Maintenance and Consistent Application:

• The IASB will be asked if any Board members object to finalising two agenda decisions from the IFRS Interpretations Committee: Non-refundable Value Added Tax on Lease Payments (IFRS 16) and Accounting for Warrants that are Classified as Financial Liabilities on Initial Recognition (IAS 32).
• The staff have been preparing the ED Supplier Finance Arrangements, which proposes to amend IAS 7 and IFRS 7. During drafting, the staff identified one issue that they want the IASB to consider. The staff recommend that the Board add a requirement for an entity to disclose, as at the beginning and end of the reporting period, the line item(s) in the statement of financial position in which the entity presents the carrying amount of financial liabilities that are part of a supplier finance arrangement.
• The staff are also asking the Board whether they have any comments or questions on the September 2021 IFRIC Update.

Pensions Benefits that Depend on Asset Returns: Following the 2015 Agenda Consultation, the Board has been considering whether to propose amendments to IAS 19 for pension benefits that depend on the return on a specified pool of assets (reference assets). The pension benefits to be paid to employees reflect the variability inherent in the reference assets yet IAS 19 requires a discount rate that reflects high-quality corporate bonds. Applying the IAS 19 discount rate can overstate the pension liability, producing information that is not relevant to users of financial statements. The staff recommend the Board propose that an entity estimate the ultimate cost of providing pension benefits that vary with asset returns applying the IAS 19 discount rate, but only when the IAS 19 discount rate is lower than the expected rate of return on the reference assets.

IFRS Taxonomy due process: The staff are seeking permission to shorten the comment period for the Proposed IFRS Taxonomy Update for the amendment Initial Application of IFRS 17 and IFRS 9—Comparative Information to 30 days.

Primary Financial Statements: The IASB will discuss two papers carried over from the September meeting, relating to associates and joint ventures and the analysis of operating expenses. The staff recommend proceeding with the proposal to present income and expenses from equity-accounted associates and joint ventures outside of operating profit, but not to require income and expenses from integral associates and joint ventures to be identified and presented separately from non-integral associates and joint ventures. They also  recommend providing application guidance that builds on the description of the function of expense method in the ED to set out the relationship with expenses of the same nature; the attributes of functions; and the interaction with the role of the primary financial statements and the principles of aggregation and disaggregation.

Additionally, the IASB will consider the following staff recommendations:

• Not to develop a definition of ‘cost of sales’
• Exploring an approach to analysing and presenting operating expenses in the statement of profit or loss that would:
  • Retain the proposal to require operating expenses to be analysed and presented based on their nature or function
  • Not retain the proposed prohibition on a mixed presentation in the statement of profit or loss and instead provide application guidance and disclosure requirements to improve comparability
  • Retain the proposal to provide application guidance on how to determine which presentation method should be used to provide the most useful information to users of the financial statements
• Exploring providing a partial cost relief from the proposed requirement for an entity that presents an analysis of operating expenses by function in the statement of profit or loss to also disclose an analysis of its total operating expenses by nature
• Amending the definition of the specified subtotal ‘operating profit or loss before depreciation and amortisation’ to also exclude impairments of assets within the scope of IAS 36 and label that subtotal ‘operating profit or loss before depreciation, amortisation, and specified impairments’.

Amendments to IFRS 17 Insurance Contracts: ED/2021/8 Initial Application of IFRS 17 and IFRS 9—Comparative Information proposed that an entity would not be permitted to apply the classification overlay to financial assets held in respect of an activity that is unconnected with contracts within the scope of IFRS 17. Most respondents suggested the IASB remove this scope restriction, and the staff agree. The ED also proposed that an entity that first applies IFRS 17 and IFRS 9 at the same time is permitted to apply the classification overlay. The proposed classification overlay would not apply to entities that have already applied IFRS 9 before initial application of IFRS 17, however the staff consider that the scope of the classification overlay should be expanded to apply in such cases. The staff recommend no substantive changes be made to the classification overlay proposed in the ED relating to impairment of financial assets or disclosures. If the Board agrees with the staff recommendations, the staff expect to be able to issue the amendment to IFRS 17 before the end of 2021.

Rate-regulated Activities: In January 2021, the Board published Exposure Draft ED/2021/1 Regulatory Assets and Regulatory Liabilities. The proposals in the ED have generally been well-received by respondents, agreeing  with: the proposed definitions for regulatory assets and regulatory liabilities; the existence threshold of ‘more likely than not’ for recognising regulatory assets and regulatory liabilities; using a cash-flow-based measurement technique to measure regulatory assets and regulatory liabilities; and using the regulatory interest rate for a regulatory asset or regulatory liability as the discount rate for that regulatory asset or regulatory liability. However, concerns were expressed about the scope; returns on assets not yet available for use; regulatory assets and regulatory liabilities arising from differences between assets’ regulatory recovery pace and their useful lives; minimum interest rate; and the interaction with IFRIC 12.

The Board is not asked to make any decisions in this session. Instead, decisions will be asked when the Board discusses those topics that raised concerns over the next few months.

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

The corrections relate to Disclosure of Accounting Policies (Amendments to IAS 1 and IFRS Practice Statement 2) published in February 2021.

Editorial corrections do not change the meaning or application of pronouncements, but instead correct inadvertent errors. The editorial corrections can be viewed on the editorial corrections page of the IASB's website.

The par­tic­i­pants discussed:

• Update on Trustees Ac­tiv­i­ties — Received an update on recent Trustee ac­tiv­i­ties which included the G7 and G20 meetings, the FSB report on the IFRS Foundation sustainability-related reporting, IFRS Foundation Constitution and work of the Technical Readiness Working Group, funding and establishment of the International Sustainability Standards Board.
• Update on Board Activities — Received an update on recent Board activities which include changes in the membership of the Board, publishing of three consultation papers, the addition of three projects to the workplan, and other significant developments. In addition, the Advisory Council discussed the review of the Management Commentary Practice Statement and the work of the ISSB, post-implementation review of IFRS 9, the Dynamic Risk Management project, and the work being conducted between the IASB and FASB to maintain the converged goodwill and impairment project.
• Update on the sustainability-related reporting project — Discussed matters related to IASB, TRWG, and ISSB.
• Update on the IFRS Foundation Constitution’s consultation — Discussed the objective of the IFRS Foundation and how the Constitution can articulate the concept of interconnectivity between the IASB and the ISSB. In addition, the Council discussed the naming and branding of the new Board and its Standards.
• Update on sustainability-related work of the US SEC — Updated on the progress of the US SEC’s climate change disclosures proposals
• Update on the TRWG — Presented with an overview of the TRWG structure, proposed architecture for new standards, connectivity between the IASB and the ISSB, and outreach programme. The Council discussed the importance of collaborating with relevant parties in each region to collect a diverse range of feedback, importance of industry-specific metrics, how to assess what material for its sustainability-related disclosures, and achieving coordination between global baseline and jurisdictional initiatives.

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

In 2019 the Government announced its Green Finance Strategy which recognises the role of the financial sector in delivering global and domestic climate and environmental objectives.

Further to the implementation of the Green Finance Strategy, the 'Greening finance: A Roadmap to Sustainable Investing' roadmap represents the government's strategy to address the information gap for market participants, ensuring a flow of decision-useful information on environmental sustainability. Central to this is a set of new economy-wide Sustainability Disclosure Requirements ("the SDR") for companies, asset managers and owners and investment products. The SDR will bring together new and existing sustainability reporting requirements for businesses, the financial sector and investment products, allowing sustainability information to flow from companies to the financial sector and its financial products.

The SDR aims to ensure that consumers and investors have all the information they need to make investment decisions that drive a positive environmental impact. This includes requiring, for the first time, every investment product to set out the environmental impact of the activities it finances, and justify clearly any sustainability claims it makes. Asset managers will also need to set out how they incorporate sustainability into their investment strategy to allow consumers to make informed judgements about the kind of firms they want to invest in.

The roadmap also sets out more details on a new green finance rulebook,  the UK Green Taxonomy, which will create a shared understanding of which economic activities count as green. Relevant companies and financial products will be required to report their environmental impact against the UK Green Taxonomy.  Consultation on this is expected in early 2022.

The roadmap highlights the importance of investor stewardship in green finance, sets out the government’s expectations in that area and reiterates the UK's commitment to international leadership on green finance. It also acknowledges that a comprehensive long-term view is  needed to help ensure that the UK meets its climate and environmental objectives. The government will therefore update its Green Finance Strategy in 2022.

The roadmap can be accessed on the HM Treasury website here.  Our related Need to know publication is here. 

The two boards informed each other about their respective activities and exchanged views on technical topics in which they both have an interest, including accounting for goodwill and accounting for financial instruments.

The next meeting between the FASB and ASBJ is expected to be held in the first half of 2022. For more information about the latest meeting, see the press release on the ASBJ website.

The topics discussed at the meeting were:

• update on work completed;
• proposals relating to the Conceptual Framework and to financial instruments;
• alignment with IFRS 16 Leases;
• Section 28 of the IFRS for SMEs Employee Benefits;
• update to multiple sections of the IFRS for SMEs for amendments to IFRSs and IFRIC Interpretations;
• alignment with IFRS 14 Regulatory Deferral Accounts;
• other topics; and
• subsidiaries without public accountability.

The report from the meeting is available on the IASB website.