Our comment letter notes our reservations about the exposure draft:

• We do not support the proposals; they would over-engineer the Constitution and probably limit rather than help the Trustees and Monitoring Board when making appointments.
• We do not support making a distinction between internal and external appointments.
• We would not wish to prevent the direct appointment of a Vice-Chair concurrently with that person's appointment as a Trustee.
• We continue to support the practice that a Trustee may serve two three-year terms, but can see that a third term of up to three years may be necessary for continuity. We do not support subsequent re-appointments to the IFRS Foundation.

Download the full comment letter here.

The agenda for the meeting is as follows:

Agenda papers for this meeting are available on the IASB's website.

New Issues

The Committee received submissions asking whether:

• IFRS 15 Revenue from Contracts with Customers: whether fees for admitting an entity to a stock exchange and fees for an ongoing listing service are distinct or relate to only one service
• IFRS 11 Joint Arrangements: how the operators in a joint operation should report a lease liability on a contract signed by the joint operation or signed only by a lead operator
• IAS 38 Intangible Assets: whether, some, cloud computing arrangements create an intangible asset
• IAS 27 Separate Financial Statements: when an entity loses control of a subsidiary as a result of disposing some of its interest, can the entity elect to measure the retained interest at FVOCI and can any gain or loss on initial disposal be presented in profit or loss
• IAS 27 Separate Financial Statements: whether the cost of a subsidiary acquired in stages is the fair value of the tranches (as deemed cost) or the sum of the consideration actually paid

The Committee decided not to take the IFRS 15, IFRS 11 and IAS 27 issues agenda will issue tentative decisions to that effect. The IAS 38 issue will be discussed again at the November meeting.

Agenda Decisions to finalise

The Committee considered the feedback on four tentative Agenda Decisions and decided to finalise them all:

• IAS 23 Borrowing Costs — Expenditure on a qualifying asset
• IAS 23 Borrowing Costs — Borrowing costs on land
• IAS 21 The Effects of Changes in Foreign Currency Exchange Rates — Determination of the exchange rate when there is a long term lack of exchangeability
• IFRS 9 Financial Instruments — Classification of a particular type of dual currency bond

Items for continuing consideration

Two matters were carried forward from earlier meetings:

• IAS 37 Provisions, Contingent Liabilities and Contingent Assets — Payments relating to taxes other than income tax. The Committee decided not to take this matter onto its agenda, and to issue a tentative Agenda Decision to that effect.
• IFRS 9 Financial Instruments — Hedge accounting with load following swaps. A tentative Agenda Decision was issued in March 2018. In light of the comments received the Committee decided not to finalise the Agenda Decision, but to issue a revised tentative Agenda Decision (i.e. to provide an opportunity for additional feedback).

Advice from the Committee for the IASB

The Committee also discussed two topics for which the IASB has asked for feedback: Cryptocurrencies (including holdings of cryptocurrencies and initial coin offerings); and feedback on the proposed amendments to the definitions of accounting policies and estimates in IAS 8 Accounting Policies, Changes in Accounting Estimates and Errors.

Other work in progress

Possible revisions to IAS 21 The Effects of Changes in Foreign Exchange Rates to clarify the accounting when the spot rate is not observable is not being discussed at this meeting. Three additional requests have been received, and are being analysed. They relate to IFRS 9 Financial Instruments and the physical settlement of a contract to buy or sell a non-financial item; IFRS 11 Joint Arrangements when there is a difference between a joint operator's entitlement to output and the amount they have actually received; and IAS 23 Borrowing Costs and the capitalisation of borrowing costs on assets being developed for sale for which revenue is recognised over time.

More information

Please click to access the detailed notes taken by Deloitte observers for the entire meeting.

As the call for candidates for the Steering Group of the Lab and an agenda paper for the meeting of the Accounting Regulatory Committee (ARC) in June 2018 reveal, the Lab is to be a separate body under the umbrella of EFRAG, drawing on the EFRAG budget and the EFRAG Secretariat for the day-to-day operation, but the Lab's output "will not be subject to usual EFRAG approval procedures or signed off by the EFRAG Board". (Participants of individual projects of the Lab will have the opportunity to comment on draft project reports before publication, but will also not be asked to approve such reports.)

The European Lab also differs from the UK Lab in that its remit, at least initially, is restricted to non-financial reporting and sustainability reporting although it is noted that the remit of the European Lab should be extended "in the medium term" to include, for example, integrated reporting. Similarly to the UK Lab, however, the "overall aim of the laboratory is to improve corporate reporting [...] and promote good reporting practices". Boundaries of this work are that it is "not the task of the laboratory to develop authoritative recommendations [...] or to develop policy recommendations" and that the Commission may steer the Lab's work by "request[ing] the laboratory to work on particular topics that fall within its scope". 

The unusual structure (the European Commission setting up the Lab under the roof of EFRAG without giving the EFRAG Board a formal say in its work) is also reflected in the composition of the Steering Group. While currently still looking for members, the Chair and the Vice-Chair of the group have already been decided: The Chair will be the President of EFRAG Board (Jean-Paul Gauzès) even though the EFRAG Board will not be involved in any decisions; the Vice-Chair will be the Head of Unit from the European Commission responsible for policy on corporate reporting (Alain Deckers).

More information on the Action plan on sustainable finance, the European Lab, and the Steering Group can be found here:

• Action plan on sustainable finance (IAS Plus news item)
• ARC agenda paper Roadmap for a European Corporate Reporting Laboratory
• EFRAG press release
• EFRAG call for candidates

The major sessions will focus on Dynamic Risk Management (Wednesday) and Primary Financial Statements (Thursday).

The Wednesday sessions start with the Dynamic Risk Management project. The Board will consider Imperfect Alignment and Change in Risk Management.

On Implementation, the IASB will formally vote on preparing a proposed amendment to IAS 37 Provisions, Contingent Liabilities and Contingent Assets to clarify the meaning of the term ‘unavoidable costs’ in the definition of an onerous contract.

The staff will provide an update on the steps they have been undertaking in relation to Extractive Activities. The staff are planning to start public education session for the Bard in 2019.

The staff will give an update on activities in the Research Programme.

The Thursday sessions start with the Primary Financial Statements project. The Board will discuss the scope of proposals for subtotals in the statement of profit or loss; unusual or infrequent items; and presentation of the results of integral and non-integral associates and joint ventures in the statement(s) of financial performance. The staff are also recommending that the project be moved to the IASB’s standard-setting programme.

The IASB is returning to its narrow-scope proposal to amend IAS 1 to clarify how an unconditional right to defer settlement of a loan relates to having the discretion to refinance or roll over an obligation affects the classification of a loan as current or non-current.

In the Disclosure Initiative, the Board has been developing an internal guide for setting and drafting disclosure requirements. The staff are asking he Board to approve the guide.

More information

Our pre-meeting summaries are available on our September meeting note page and will be supplemented with our popular meeting notes after the meeting.

The formula linkbase designed to help improve the data quality of IFRS Taxonomy filings and to provide additional guidance for both technical and financial reporting audiences so that they can better understand the IFRS concepts and their meanings.

For more information, see the press release on the IASB's website.

The purpose of the TRG is to seek feedback on potential issues related to implementation of IFRS 17 Insurance Contracts. By analysing and discussing potential implementation issues, the TRG will help the IASB determine whether additional action is needed, such as providing clarification or issuing other guidance. This meeting will be the third meeting where technical matters will be discussed.

The agenda for the meeting is as follows:

Agenda papers for this meeting are available on the IASB's website.

The 'Annotated Red Book' contains all official pronouncements that have an effective date after 1 January 2018, refelecting changes not yet required. Copies will be priced at £105 each before discounts, plus shipping. More information is available on the IASB's register my interest webpage (link to IASB website).

The agenda for the meeting is summarised below:

Agenda papers for the meeting are available on the IASB's website.

This webcast discusses the Board’s preferred approach approach to the presentation of financial liabilities.

The press release on the IASB website offers access to the webcast and to the slides, which can be downloaded separately.

All six webcasts of the series are available on the IASB FICE project page.