April

IFRS Foundation publishes XBRL examples, SEC issues 'no action' letter for US IFRS filers

13 Apr 2011

The IFRS Foundation has published a set of 12 illustrative examples in XBRL for the IFRS Taxonomy 2011. These examples illustrate how the IFRS Taxonomy 2011 should be used to tag IFRS financial statements (including notes) in XBRL, and in accordance with the XBRL architecture outlined in The IFRS Taxonomy 2011 Guide and The Global Filing Manual.

The examples are intended to help preparers understand how to apply the taxonomy to create instance documents and entity-specific extensions using both block tagging and detailed tagging, and also XBRL and Inline XBRL.

In response to United Statements Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) concerns about the suitability of the existing IFRS Taxonomy 2011 for US filing purposes and the outcomes of an pilot XBRL study, the IFRS Foundation has announced the taxonomy is to be extended to include more terms that are commonly used in practice. In the meantime, the SEC has issued a 'no action' letter, in which it states:

"... we are of the view that foreign private issuers that prepare their financial statements in accordance with IFRS as issued by the IASB are not required to submit to the Commission and post on their corporate websites, if any, Interactive Data Files until the Commission specifies on its website a taxonomy for use by such foreign private issuers in preparing their Interactive Data Files."

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Additional IASB meetings in April and May (tentative)

12 Apr 2011

The IASB has announced several additional special IASB meetings in April and May.

All of them are as yet marked as tentative:
  • Wednesday and Thursday, 27 and 28 April 2011
  • Wednesday, 4 May 2011
  • Wednesday and Thursday, 11 and 12 May 2011
  • Tuesday, 31 May 2011

As a rule of thumb, the IASB needs another two months for internal coordination and editorial work after having finalised deliberations. Considering the fact that according to the current work programme the IASB intends to enter the balloting phase for the four major projects currently on the agenda in June 2011, the deliberations of this week's meeting will be of great significance – also for the timing and number of future meetings.

EC Single Market Newsletter

12 Apr 2011

The European Commission has posted on its website the newest electronic English language version of its newsletter Single Market News.

One article in that newsletter may be of particular interest to IAS Plus visitors: 'Financial Reporting and Auditing – Time for change?' The article focuses on accounting and auditing, a topic which has also been discussed in the UK House of Lords' report published in March.
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Update on the funding of the IFRS Foundation

12 Apr 2011

The IFRS Foundation has posted to its website a presentation The IFRS Foundation's Financial Position: 2010 Results and 2011 Budget.

2010 resulted in an operating deficit of £1.3 million; the budget is balanced for 2011. Largest contributors for 2011 will be the European Union (£3.7 million plus £2.0 million from EU member states), the United States (£1.9 million) and Japan (£1.8 million). The joined contribution from Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers will be £5.8 million. Please go the the IFRS Foundation website for the presentation with further results and budget information (PDF 1.74mb).

 

Meeting summary for April EFRAG TEG meeting

12 Apr 2011

The European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) has released details of their meeting held on 6 to 8 April 2011. The meeting focused on:

  • IASB supplementary document to Exposure Draft Financial Instruments: Impairment
  • IASB Exposure Draft Revenue from Contracts with Customers
  • IASB Exposure Draft Leases
  • EFRAG Proactive project The Role of the Business Model in Financial Reporting
  • EFRAG Proactive project Business Combinations under Common Control.
Click for the EFRAG summary of the meeting (link to EFRAG website).

 

IIRC to hold meeting in New York in May to discuss integrated reporting

12 Apr 2011

The International Integrated Reporting Committee (IIRC) will be meeting in New York City on Friday 13th May 2011.

The key objective of the meeting will be to discuss and agree a Discussion Paper on Integrated Reporting that is to be released for business and investor testing and public consultation in June 2011 and plans to present proposals for an IR framework at the time of the G20 Finance Ministers meeting in October 2011.

The IIRC is also undertaking a pilot programme is to give organisations the opportunity to test and provide feedback on the development of the Integrated Reporting framework. The initial phase of the pilot program will involve company and investor testing of the Integrated Reporting Discussion Paper in June to July 2011. The initial phase will be followed by a full pilot programme which will commence in September 2011 for a two year reporting cycle.

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Canadian securities regulators adopt updated mining disclosure rule

11 Apr 2011

The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) have published a new version of National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects, its related form and policy.

The Instrument establishes standards for disclosure of scientific and technical information regarding mineral projects and requires that the disclosure be based on a technical report or other information prepared by or under the supervision of a qualified person. The Instrument does not apply to disclosure concerning petroleum, natural gas, bituminous sands or shales, groundwater, coal bed methane, or other substances that do not fall within the meaning of the term "mineral project" in the Instrument.

The revised mining rule and related amendments eliminate or reduce the scope of certain requirements, provide greater flexibility to mining issuers in certain areas, reflect changes that have occurred in the mining industry, and clarify or correct areas where the previous standards were not having the desired effect.

The IASB's Discussion Paper DP/2010/1 Extractive Activities also contains proposed disclosure requirements in relation to reserves and resources. The IASB is yet to decide whether to add a project on Extractive Activities to its active agenda.

Subject to obtaining all necessary approvals, the new mining rule will come into force on 30 June 2011. Click for National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects (link to CSA website).

Deloitte publications update

09 Apr 2011

The following Deloitte publications are now available:

Global publications

Deloitte (Columbia)

Deloitte (Spain)

Deloitte (United Kingdom)

Deloitte (United States)

 

FEE paper on combined financial statements

08 Apr 2011

The European Federation of Accountants (FEE) has published a paper Combined Financial Statements: A Discussion Paper.

The paper is intended to enhance the public debate on the preparation of combined financial statements under IFRS since "[a]t present, IFRSs do not provide a specific standard for the preparation of combined financial statements. Therefore, there seem to be diverse practices in preparing such financial information. [...] Since significant diverse practices in preparing combined financial information are inappropriate for the functioning of capital markets, there is an obvious need for harmonisation." The paper forms a first step to collect views from all parties concerned and describes briefly the key areas relevant for the preparation and understanding of combined financial statements and identifies questions. The press release on the FEE's website contains a link to the discussion paper. The comment deadline is 30 September 2011.

 

ASB publishes case studies

08 Apr 2011

The staff of the UK Accounting Standards Board (ASB) has prepared case studies that are designed to help constituents assess the effect of the proposals for the future of financial reporting in the UK and Republic of Ireland published in October 2010.

The comment period for the exposure drafts setting out the proposals for a three-tier reporting framework, which aims to balance the needs of preparers and users of accounts, still runs until 30 April 2011. The case studies can be accessed on the ASB's website.

 

Correction list for hyphenation

These words serve as exceptions. Once entered, they are only hyphenated at the specified hyphenation points. Each word should be on a separate line.