IASB Supplementary Meeting

The IASB is holding a supplementary meeting on 15 May 2020 to consider feedback on its proposal to amend IFRS 16 in response to COVID-19.  

The staff recommend that the Board finalise the proposed amendments, but allow the expedient to be applied to COVID-19-related rent concessions to payments originally due on or before 30 June 2021; require disclosure of the amount recognised in profit or loss to reflect changes in lease payments that arise from COVID-19-related rent concessions; and specify that in the reporting period in which a lessee first applies the amendment, it is not required to disclose the amount of the adjustment for each line item affected or its effect on earnings per share.

The staff recommend that the Board take no further action in response to requests to provide similar relief to lessors.  If the Board agrees with its recommendations, the staff expect issuing a final amendment on or around 28 May 2020.

IASB Meeting

The IASB is meeting on Wednesday 20 and Thursday 21 May 2020.

Amendments to IFRS 17 Insurance Contracts: The amendments to IFRS 17 are being finalised by the staff. During this process the staff identified five (sweep) issues for which the staff are recommending that that make additional changes to the Standard.

Maintenance and Consistent Application: Sale and leaseback with variable payments: At its April 2020 meeting, the Board decided to amend IFRS 16 for sale and leaseback transactions when the lease has variable payments. At this meeting the staff are recommending that the proposed amendment be applied retrospectively in accordance with IAS 8, except when hindsight is required, and that early application be permitted.

Disclosure Initiative—Accounting policies: The staff recommend that the Board finalise the proposal to require entities to disclose ‘material’ accounting policies instead of ‘significant’ accounting policies, with minor changes. The finalisation should not be delayed to align with any changes arising from the ED General Presentation and Disclosures. However, the staff will consider whether to align the effective date of this amendment with the amendments to IAS 8 under the Accounting Policies and Accounting Estimates project.

Management Commentary: The discussion will continue to focus on disclosure objectives and the type of information that would support those objectives. There are two areas this month: risk and the external evironment.

Research Programme update: The staff will update the Board on the research programme, including recent the changes to the timetable and priorities.

There will also be an oral update of IBOR Reform and the Effects on Financial Reporting.

More information

Our pre-meeting summaries are available on our May meeting notes and supplementary meeting notes pages and will be supplemented with our popular meeting notes after the meeting.

Specifically, Ms Ko discussed:

• Background on how the IFRS Foundation started and its role in the development of the IFRS Standards.
• Current state of sustainability report where there are over 650 different metric available and the desire by many to consolidate the metrics into a global comparable framework.
• Actions taken by (1) the IASB which include the update to its Practice Statement Management Commentary and (2) the Trustees which include the establishment of a working group to determine the role of the IFRS Foundation in sustainability reporting.

The full presentation is available on the IASB’s website.

The proposed standard, International Standard on Auditing (ISA) 600 (Revised), Special Considerations—Audits of Group Financial Statements (Including the Work of Component Auditors) introduces an enhanced risk-based approach to planning and performing a group audit and highlights the importance of the group engagement team’s involvement in the component auditor’s work.

In addition, the proposed standard:

• Clarifies the scope and applicability of the standard.
• Emphasises the importance of exercising professional skepticism throughout the group audit.
• Clarifies and reinforces that all ISAs need to be applied in a group audit through establishing stronger linkages to the other ISAs, in particular to proposed ISA 220 (Revised), ISA 315 (Revised 2019) and ISA 330.
• Reinforces the need for robust communication and interactions between the group engagement team, group engagement partner and component auditors.
• Includes new guidance on testing common controls and controls related to centralised activities.
• Includes enhanced guidance on how to address restrictions on access to people and information.
• Enhances special considerations in other areas of a group audit, including materiality and documentation.

The exposure draft is open for public comment until 2 October 2020.

A press release and the exposure draft can be found on the IAASB website here. 

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

• IBOR reform and its effects on financial reporting — Phase 2 (1–12): The ASAF were provided with an overview of the IASB’s proposed amendments for the forthcoming Exposure Draft Interest Rate Benchmark Reform — Phase 2 and gave their initial views to the expected proposals, which they were in broad agreement. In addition, the ASAF members provided feedback on what constitutes a ‘modification’ of financial assets and financial liabilities, disclosures, and other topics.
• Update on agenda planning (13–17): The ASAF was given an update on the IASB’s work plan and the change of timelines of various projects due to the coronavirus pandemic. The ASAF expects its next meeting to be held in July 2020 and will likely be virtual.
• Goodwill and Impairment (18–25): The ASAF were provided with an overview of the IASB’s preliminary views on Discussion Paper Business Combinations — Disclosures, Goodwill and Impairment and provided recommendations on how to conduct outreach and fieldwork activities.
• Better Communication — Primary Financial Statements (26–46): The ASAF discussed topics related to the proposals in Exposure Draft General Presentation and Disclosures. Topics discussed include subtotals and categories in the statement of profit or loss, disaggregation, management performance measures, and statement of cash flows.

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

In the draft comment letter, EFRAG agrees with the proposals in the exposure draft published on 4 May 2020 that would defer the effective date of the January 2020 amendments to IAS 1 by one year.

EFRAG acknowledges that there may be related operational consequences of the amendments, but opines that the advantages of a deferral during this time of significant disruption due to COVID-19 would outweigh the disadvantages, as earlier application of the amendments will continue to be permitted. ​

Comments on EFRAG's draft comment letter are requested by 25 May 2020. For more information, see the press release and the draft comment letter on the EFRAG website.

Please note that the collections do in part overlap - especially the IASB statements on IFRS 9 and IFRS 16 are included in almost all of them. Please be also aware that these collections will continue to be updated throughout the crisis. This page was last updated on 22 May 2020.

If you are aware of additional collections that would be of interest to an international financial reporting audience, please feel free to contact us.

Please note that the collections do in part overlap - especially the IASB statements on IFRS 9 and IFRS 16 are included in almost all of them. Please be also aware that these collections will continue to be updated throughout the crisis. This page was last updated on 2 September 2020.

If you are aware of additional collections that would be of interest to an international financial reporting audience, please feel free to contact us.

The Board will discuss the following:

• Amendments to IFRS 17 Insurance Contracts
• Management commentary
• Research programme update
• Maintenance and consistent application
• IBOR reform and the effects on financial reporting (oral update)
• Disclosure initiative — accounting policies

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.

The only point for discussion will be the comment letter analysis and redeliberation of the proposed amendment to IFRS 16 in relation to COVID-19-related rent concessions. An agenda paper for the meeting is not yet available. The IASB expects to post the paper on 12 May.

The CMAC/GPF meeting was originally scheduled for 18-19 June 2020. A new date has not yet been announced.

The ASAF meeting was to be held on 9-10 July. It has been cancelled completely and the next regularly meeting is currently scheduled for 1-2 October 2020.