Mr Gauzès was the candidate proposed by the European Commission for the role of President and had been heard and approved by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) of the European Parliament.

Please click for the EFRAG press release on the General Assembly vote.

Mr Buchanan, Global Head of IFRS at BDO, was one of two people appointed to one seat to be filled on a rotational basis in 2013. Andrew Watchman from Grant Thornton was chosen to fill the seat for three years from 2013 but stepped down early due to his appointment as European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) CEO and Technical Expert Group Chairman. His seat remained vacant for three months as Andrew Buchanan starts his appointment as originally planned as off today for a three-year term.

Today also sees the beginning of the second term of three reappointed members and the beginning of the first term of two new members of the Committee.

Additional information:

• IASB press release
• Overview of IFRS Committee responsibilites and membership

This publication addresses some questions of interpretation that have arisen as countries and MNEs (Multinational Enterprises) have been preparing to implement CBCR. In the OECD's view, these questions are best addressed through common public guidance.

The four areas covered in the guidance are:

• Transitional filing options for MNEs (“parent surrogate filing”).
• The application of CBCR to investment funds.
• The application of CBCR to partnerships.
• The impact of currency fluctuations on the €750 million filing threshold.

Country-by-country reporting (CBCR) is one of the actions recommended by the OECD as part of its work on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS). For more information on CBCR as part of the BEPS project, see our previous UK Accounting Plus news article about the implementation of CBCR in the UK.

The guidance document can be obtained from the OECD website.

Today's last batch of answers also included thoughts on the following question:

In areas of accountancy, what new policies will follow? Will [the UK] be inclined or persuaded to depart from International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and re-establish UK Generally Accepted Accounting Practice (UK GAAP)?

The ICAS staff argue that if the UK intends to remain a global player, "then one would expect that it would need to require listed entities to comply with global standards in the area of financial reporting".They state:

IFRS is now seen as the global benchmark in terms of financial reporting standards and therefore their use, or the use of standards substantively based on the IFRS framework (adopted standards), would appear to be the primary option.

However, the ICAS staff point out that following its exit the UK would have the ability to specifically adopt IFRS standards as issued by the IASB without them firstly having to be adopted by the EU. They also explain that the UK could establish its own adoption mechanism, possibly via the Financial Reporting Council (FRC).

Please click for the following information on the ICAS website:

• List of 20 questions
• Answers on business and trade
• Answers on bridging the policy gap
• Answers on taxation and accounting

After the usual remarks on IFRS adoption around the world, Mr Hoogervorst turned to the main message of his speech. He explained that "preparers sometimes experience financial reporting as too much of a compliance exercise and investors sometimes believe that the financial statements depict performance in an insufficiently clear manner". As he noted, valuable information gets drowned out by ‘tick the box’ disclosures and voluminous, but poorly organised and presented financial data. Mr Hoogervorst also commented on preparers presenting alternative performance measures that are not based on IFRSs to paint a rosier picture than reality. Finally, he mentioned non-financial information on, for example, sustainability issues.

To help investors see what preparers are actually saying, the IASB therefore needs to do more work to increase the communication effectiveness of financial statements, as Mr Hoogervorst said. To this end, and to make sure that financial statements communicate as clearly as possible what preparers are doing, the IASB will take a fresh look at how financial information is presented, how it is grouped together, and in what form it is made available.

The main projects Mr Hoogervorst mentioned that will contribute to this mission are the the project on primary financial statements, the disclosure initiative, and the project on financial instruments with characteristics of equity. He also promised that the IASB would have a closer look at digital reporting and non-financial reporting.

Please click to access the full text of Mr Hoogervorsts's speech on the IASB website.

The IFRS Interpretations Committee will continue its discussions on an IAS 12 issue, deliberate comment letters received on the draft interpretations on IAS 21 and IAS 12 as well as on an issue relating to IAS 19/IFRIC 14, and finalise agenda decisions on IFRS 11 and IFRIC 12.

The full agenda and our detailed pre-meeting summaries for the meeting can be found here. We will update this page for any changes to the agenda and our Deloitte observer notes from the meeting as they become available.

The webcast discusses the measurement of lease liabilities (lease term, variable lease payments, in-substance fixed lease payments, discount rate) and the measurement of right-of-use assets.

The new webcast and all previous webcasts of the series available on the IFRS 16 implementation page on the IASB’s website.

The publication provides key data on the accountancy profession, its member bodies and practising firms.  The publication illustrates the size and shape of the accountancy profession and shows how it has evolved over recent years.  It brings together information about the major audit firms and seven accountancy bodies including both those who offer audit qualifications and those who register and supervise audit firms.

The publication includes:

• information related to membership, students, income, costs and staffing of the seven accountancy bodies;
• information related to the supervision of statutory auditors; and
• information on the 41 registered audit firms with public interest entity clients.

The FRC press release and full publication are available on the FRC website.

The Finance (No. 2) Bill 2016, which is still in the process of receiving parliamentary approval, is expected to require all large businesses (other than open-ended investment companies and investment trusts) to publish a tax strategy before the end of the first financial year commencing after the bill receives Royal Assent.

A large business is a company, partnership, group or sub-group which, meets one of the following criteria.

• In its previous tax year it had either:
  • turnover above £200 million; or
  • a balance sheet over £2 billion.
• It is required (or would be required if the head of the group were UK tax resident) to make an annual country-by-country report to HMRC.

For groups and sub-groups, the relevant figure for comparison with the thresholds above is the aggregate figure for all UK group entities.

HMRC's document provides guidance on the following areas.

• Who has responsibility for publishing the tax strategy?
• What to include in the strategy.
• How and when to publish it.
• Penalties for non-compliance.

The guidance document is available from HMRC's website and the draft Finance Bill can be obtained from the UK parliament website.

In May 2015 the Lab published Digital Present – current use of digital media in corporate reporting, a project report on investors’ views on the digital communication used by companies in corporate reporting. In June 2016 the Lab issued a call for participants for its Digital Future: Data project which will look at how the use of technology to communicate corporate reporting to the investment community might evolve.

The publication identifies the key characteristics of PDF annual reporting that any future digital corporate reporting mediums may need to provide in order to be successful. These characteristics were identified as part of the Digital Present project and will be examined and expanded upon as part of the Lab’s Digital Future work.

Click here to access the FRC publication Components of Digital Reporting in full.