Day 2 of the meeting, held on 17 November 2010, was joint meeting with the United States Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). We have also posted the notes from the late session of Day 1 of the meeting (IASB-only) on post-employment benefits.

The topics discussed were as follows (click through for Deloitte observer notes on each topic):

• Post-employment benefits (IASB only)
  • Presentation
  • Disclosure
  • Classification
• Technical plan
  • Financial instruments
  • Discontinued operations
  • Conceptual Framework
• Asset and liability offsetting
  • Primary model — unconditional right and intention to offset
  • Simultaneous settlement of financial asset and liability
  • Unconditional right to offset
  • Comparison of financial statements prepared under IFRS and US GAAP
• Financial Instruments - Impairment
  • Education session
• Revenue Recognition
  • Update on outreach and comment letters
• Other Comprehensive Income
  • Major issues from respondents

The Board also discussed the conceptual framework (reporting entity phase). We will post notes from this additional topic on Friday 19 November.

Click here to go to the preliminary and unofficial Notes Taken by Deloitte Observers for the entire meeting.

The existing membership base of the two committees has been enhanced through increased representation from auditors and preparers, financial institutions, accounting bodies, standard-setters, regulators and software vendors from around the world.

• The XBRL Advisory Council provides strategic advice to the Trustees and the Foundation's XBRL team on the future development and adoption of the XBRL Taxonomy for International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs).
• The XBRL Quality Review Team helps to assure the quality of XBRL taxonomy by reviewing taxonomies developed by the IFRS Foundation.

Day 1 of the meeting, held on 16 November 2010, was an IASB-only meeting. The topics discussed were as follows (click through for Deloitte observer notes on each topic):

• Liabilities: IFRS to replace IAS 37
  • Recognition criteria - threshold for 'liability exists' criterion
  • Recognition - guidance for 'liability exists' criterion
  • Recognition - removal of 'probable outflows' criterion
  • Next Steps
• IFRS 1 - Removal of fixed dates
  • Comment letter analysis and effective date
• IFRS Interpretations Committee update
  • IFRS 2 Share-based Payment — Vesting and non-vesting conditions
  • IAS 32 Financial Instruments: Presentation — Put options written over non-controlling interests
• Financial Instruments - Hedge Accounting
  • Macro hedge accounting

The Board also discussed post-employment benefits. Notes from this additional topic will be posted on Thursday 18 November.

Click here to go to the preliminary and unofficial Notes Taken by Deloitte Observers for the entire meeting.

An overview of all dates and places is available in this press release (link to EFRAG website). The feedback received during the meetings with constituents around Europe will be provided to the IASB upon completion of the outreach events, and will be taken into consideration in planning further steps on the project.

 

APEC is an inter-governmental organisation with 21 member economies in the Asia-Pacific region, including Australia, Canada, The People's Republic of China, Japan and the United States.

The Economic Policy Report discusses various corporate governance matters, including the international harmonisation of accounting standards. In this regard, whilst acknowledging the benefits of IFRS, the report consider the possibility of maintaining 'diversity' in accounting standards, or permitting choice. This stance is quite different to the direction of the G20, which more strongly favours convergence of accounting standards (see our earlier story).

An extract from the report follows:

International Accounting Standards Harmonization Harmonization with international accounting standards is an issue that gains and loses momentum with some regularity but is relevant to corporate governance. IFRS are not universally accepted in APEC, and debate continues about their merits versus other accounting standards. In particular, there is a corporate governance concern that some accounting standards may be better at encouraging long-term, stable growth than at focusing on one accounting period's earnings. However, there are also significant benefits to harmonizing accounting standards... Universal accounting standards backed by universal professional performance standards would allow easy comparison among companies, enabling more efficient capital allocation and global corporate performance, as long as the standard chosen incentivizes long-term performance over earnings manipulation or smoothing. Such standardization increases pressure on companies by forcing them to compete for capital with all other competitors for capital in the world. However, if the standard chosen allows fraud to go undetected for some period, the world might suffer a global simultaneous accounting scandal crisis. Given the events of the past decade such a scenario should be considered. Thus, it may be important to maintain diversity in accounting standards, or even to allow companies to choose which standards to use along with choosing which economy and stock exchange in which to compete for capital.

Click for APEC press release (link to the APEC website).

The meeting focused on regulation of over-the-counter derivatives and oversight of credit rating agencies and managers of hedge and private equity funds. Further, they shared views on market structure issues, systemic risk, and issues relating to the convergence of IFRS and U.S. GAAP. Since many global financial firms operate in both the United States and Europe, the SEC and CESR members agreed to discuss a method to improve the effectiveness and minimize the conflicts which will arise for firms subject to new rules from both markets.

This newsletter describes the recently published revised version of IFRS 9 Financial Instruments that retains the requirements for classification and measurement of financial assets that were published in November 2009 but adds guidance on the classification and measurement of financial liabilities.

Click for:

• IFRS in Focus Newsletter – IASB issues revisions to IFRS 9 for financial liability accounting (PDF 82k)
• Past editions of IFRS in Focus
• our IAS Plus summary of the IASB's project on the classification and measurement of financial instruments

 

• Opening comments
• Revenue recognition
• Leases
• Consolidation
• Financial instruments
  • Hedge accounting
  • Impairment
  • Other financial instruments issues
• Financial statement presentation: other comprehensive income
• Insurance
• Other items
  • Fair Value Measurement guidance
  • EFRAG Pro-active Activities
  • EC consultation on country-by-country reporting

Click here to go to the preliminary and unofficial Notes Taken by Deloitte Observers for the entire meeting.

• Click to listen to the morning session (link to IASB website)
• Click to listen to the afternoon session (link to IASB website)

On 8 November 2010, the IASB staff presented two webcasts about the exposure draft on Hedge Accounting that will be published shortly.

• Click to listen to the morning session (link to IASB website)
• Click to listen to the afternoon session (link to IASB website)

Click for our IAS Plus summary of the IASB's Comprehensive Project on Financial Instruments.

The topics discussed were as follows:

• Financial Instruments: Impairment

Click here to go to the preliminary and unofficial Notes Taken by Deloitte Observers for the entire meeting.