In February 2009, the European Commission tabled proposals to reduce burdensome accounting rules for Europe's smallest companies – so-called "micro entities". From next year, it will be possible for Member States to radically simplify the way in which micro-entities prepare their accounts. When it comes to publishing accounts, governments will be able to create a "one-stop-shop" which would see micro-entities only having to send their accounts to the tax administration, which would in turn be responsible for passing the accounts onto the Company Registry. Today, in many countries micro-entities have to file a full set of financial statements, including the balance sheet and profit and loss account, and are required to disclose this through publication in a national gazette.

This simplification ties in with the European proposals for revising the Accounting Directives and the Transparency Directive published in October 2011.

Please click for:

• EC Press Release (link to EC website)
• Frequently Asked Questions on the burden reduction for micro-entities (link to EC website)

Click through for direct access to the notes:

Tuesday, 13 December 2011

• IFRS 10 – Transitional requirements (IASB only)
• IFRIC Update (IASB only)
• Financial instruments – Macro hedge accounting (IASB only)
• Financial instruments – Classification and measurement (IASB only)

Notes from the session on Leases will be posted soon.

Click here to go to the preliminary and unofficial notes taken by Deloitte observers for the entire meeting.

Mr Upton has been with the IASB since 2001, and previously worked at the FASB for almost 20 years. In an interview with financial journalist Robert Bruce, who is also the resident commentator for IAS Plus, Mr Upton compares his United States and global roles, the challenges of global standard setting such as consistency in application across jurisdictions and the needs of emerging economies, and his plans as Chairman of the IFRS Interpretations Committee.

Click for access to the interview (link to IASB website).

On 18 November 2011, EFRAG held a meeting via public conference call. The EFRAG TEG meeting was held 7 to 9 December 2011. Highlights of the meetings were a draft endorsement advice on the amendments of IFRS 1 and the draft comment letters to the IASB's draft on government loans.

Click for the EFRAG Update (PDF 347k, link to EFRAG website). Links to earlier issues are available here.

The EPRA Sustainability BPR have been developed to prepare companies for the likely introduction of more stringent mandatory sustainability reporting regulations across Europe. 

The document sets out core recommendations for sustainability reporting which EPRA expects all of its members to report on, alongside additional recommendations which are based on observations of good practice.  The expectation is that companies should, as a minimum, include a summary table of EPRA Sustainability Performance Measures in their annual financial report, with a detailed report in their annual sustainability or corporate responsibility report.

The BPR sets out a number of performance measures, both in terms of absolute values and intensity measures.  The metrics set out cover the following key areas of sustainability:

• Energy
• Greenhouse Gas Emissions
• Waste
• Water

It also sets out some overarching recommendations which cover the following principles, which should apply to the reporting of EPRA Sustainability Performance Measures:

• Organisational boundaries
• Landlord and tenant consumption arrangements
• Intensity normalisation
• Year-on-year like-for-like comparison
• Segmental analysis (by property type and geography)
• Narrative on performance

To encourage knowledge sharing and reward best practice, EPRA will be introducing an annual Sustainability BPR Award in 2012 to recognise the efforts of those companies who adopt the BPR and innovate in their measurement and reporting of performance.

Click here for a copy of the BPR document (link to EPRA website).

Michel Prada has taken the helm as the new Chairman of the Trustees of the IFRS Foundation. To be the guiding hand at the top of the organisational pyramid which oversees the IASB and international standard setting is a complex role. But it is a role which has shown its worth in the past. Both Paul Volcker and Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, have amongst others, added the necessary strength and intelligent sense of mission to the task in the past.

Now it is up to Prada to help steer the organisation forward in times which continue to be uncertain. There is still a decision due from the US regulatory body, the SEC, on whether IFRS can become the norm for major US corporates. Decisions have to be made following the consultations on the IASB’s future agenda. These are not quiet times. The whole organisation will be the better for more solidity at the centre.

And Prada has the skills. And he knows the landscape intimately. He is a onetime head of the executive and technical committees of IOSCO, the international stock exchange body. He was a founding member of the Financial Stability Board. He was a member of the Financial Crisis Advisory Group which produced rigorous work on the role of accounting standards in the financial crisis. He played a leading role in the idea of European adoption of IFRSs in 2005. He chairs the International Valuation Standards Council. And he chaired the main French regulatory body, first the COB, then the AMF, for twelve years.

As Prada put it himself a few years ago: ‘The task of the IASB will be complete only if, and when, IFRS will be accepted on every financial market without local additional requirements. I also recognize that the world will continue to change and that the existing accounting standards are not etched in stone forever. But setting accounting standards is not, let me say it again, an academic exercise. It should take into account the practical aspects and realities of this world’.

Robert Bruce
December 2011

Related links

• Our article on the announcement of Michel Prada as Chairman of the Trustees of the IFRS Foundation.