Monday 10 December 2018, 9:00 - 18:00

• Opening remarks
• Accounting and extra-financial information: an overview of the current status and practices
• Benefits... and challenges of a sustainable company: discussion around ESG reporting
• Perspectives... and what is at stake for a global high-performing company: taking into account intangibles
• Moving towards a comprehensive company report? For whom, which objectives, by whom...
• Final roundtable: European public interest and company reporting
• Closing remarks

The topics will be addressed in various forms: presentations of academic papers, overview of the academic research, testimonials, addresses by key speakers, and roundtables.

Details on the presenters, roundtable participants and speakers are available in the programme on the ANC website.

More information about the issues is set out below:

Click to access all our comment letters to the IASB, IFRS Foundation, and IFRS Interpretations Committee.

The podcast features discussions of the following topics in more detail (length of the podcast: 15 minutes):

• IFRS 17 Insurance contracts
• Primary financial statements
• Management commentary
• Classification of liabilities as current or non -current
• Rate-regulated activities
• Implementation issues the IFRS Interpretations Committee is considering
• Cryptocurrencies

The podcast can be accessed through the press release on the IASB website. More information on the topics discussed is available through our comprehensive notes taken by Deloitte observers at the November IASB meeting.

The Board decided to propose an amendment to defer the effective date of IFRS 17 Insurance Contracts (and the related temporary exemption to IFRS 9 Financial Instruments) by a year.  

In the Primary Financial Statements discussion the Board decided that EBITDA not be a required sub-total but that more research was necessary before it could decide whether, or how, to define it as “operating profit before depreciation and amortisation.”  The Board also decided to develop non-mandatory illustrative examples to accompany a revised IAS 1 Presentation of Financial Statements, remove the requirement in IAS 1:82(b) to present “finance costs” in the statement(s) of financial performance and clarify how the minimum line items are presented.

The Board discussed three implementation issues. The Board decided to proceed with the amendments to IAS 16 Property, Plant and Equipment, with some modifications, rather than support the staff recommendation that the proceeds continue to be deducted from the cost of the asset. The Board decided not to start a project on accounting for cryptocurrencies or ICOs, but they will continue to monitor developments in these areas. The Chairman used his casting vote to ask the IFRS Interpretations Committee to consider issuing an Agenda Decision on the accounting for cryptocurrency holdings. The Board decided that the Exposure Draft proposing amendments to IAS 37 Provisions, Contingent Liabilities and Contingent Assets in relation to costs of fulfilling a contract also propose that early application be permitted.

The staff explained how they expect to manage the Management Commentary project using three work streams. The Board discussed the recommended objective of management commentary.

The Board decided to make some small changes to the proposed amendments to IAS 1 in relation to Classification of Liabilities as Current or Non-current.

The Board decided to update a reference to the Conceptual Framework in IFRS 3 Business Combinations

The proposed model for Rate-regulated Activities supplements the information provided by applying current IFRS Standards. The Board discussed how the proposed model interacts with those other Standards. The Board also supported the recommendations about what information should be presented about rate-regulated activities, except for one related to OCI.

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

The Advisory Council is the formal advisory body to the Trustees and the IASB. It advises the IFRS Foundation on its strategic direction, technical work plan and priorities.

The new and reappointed members of the Advisory Council are:

• Andreas Barckow - Accounting Standards Committee of Germany
• Garth Jones - AIA Group
• Maria Ángeles Peláez Morón - Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, SA
• Sergey Epifanov - Lukoil
• Tessa Kuijl - Ortec Finance
• M P Vijar Kumar - South Asian Federation of Accountants
• James Andrus - Council of Institutional Investors
• Trevor Derwin - Deloitte & Touche
• Daniel Civit - Grant Thornton
• Russell Guthrie - International Federation of Accountants (IFAC)
• Ellen Gaston - International Monetary Fund (IMF)
• George Iguchi - The Securities Analysts Association of Japan
• William Coen - Basel Committee on Banking Supervision
• Aziz Dieye - Fédération Internationale des Experts-Comptables Francophones
• Isabelle Ferrand - International Co-operative Alliance
• Andrew Marshall - KPMG
• Yibin Gao - Ministry of Finance, People’s Republic of China

All appointments take effect 1 January 2019 and are for a three-year period.

In addition, the Trustees noted that the following members are stepping down from the Council at the end of 2018 or have stepped down already: Gavin Francis, Jake Green, Igor Kozyrev, Ghiath Shabsign, Anne Simpson, Lynda Sullivan, Stephen Taylor, Goro Kumagai, and Colin McDonald.

The press release announcing the new appointments can be found on the IASB's website.

Meeting activities included the following:

• Executive session:
  • Report of the Executive Director — The Trustees received a report from the Executive Director Lee White on activities since the last meeting.
  • Governance issues — The Trustees discussed and agreed proposed changes to the Foundation’s Constitution and changes to membership of ASAF.
  • Operations analysis — The Trustees received presentations on the Foundation’s technology and future IT architecture.
  • Future meetings — The Trustees confirmed that their next meeting would be in Kuala Lumpur in January 2019, with later meetings in Munich and New York.
  • Committee reports — The Trustees discussed reports from the Audit and Finance Committee, the Human Capital Committee, the Nominating Committee, the Education and Content Services Committee, and the DPOC. (Recordings from the DPOC meeting were released in October 2018).
• IASB Chairman’s report — The Chair of the IASB provided the Trustees with a general update on the IASB’s technical activities (especially on financial instruments with characteristics of equity, principles of disclosure, goodwill and impairment, primary financial statements, and IBOR reform) and then discussed the Board's support for the implementation of IFRS 17 and possible amendments to the standard.
• Meetings in Johannesburg — The Trustees held a stakeholder discussion and dinner entitled The future of financial reporting: an African perspective.

The full report on the IFRS Foundation trustees’ and DPOC meeting is available on the IASB’s website.

The agenda for the meeting is sum­marised below:

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

Stakeholders from 23 EU Member States and 25 third countries (among them stakeholders from Australia, Canada, China, Japan, South Africa, and the United States) submitted 338 responses to the consultation. Approximately 60% of the responses were submitted by entities located in Germany, the United Kingdom, Belgium, France, and the Netherlands. For the majority of respondents, the EU framework for public reporting works well as it brings added value, is coherent, effective and relevant for achieving its intended objectives.

As regards the IAS Regulation and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), a majority of respondents supported the status quo as regards the EU IFRS endorsement process (“yes-no” endorsement process with no changes to IFRSs as issued by the IASB) and cautioned strongly against “carve-ins” and "carve-outs" that could lead to “EU-IFRSs”, a situation that could be detrimental to EU companies active globally and to foreign investments into the EU. Answers to this question showed respondents from France to be the strongest voice for changes (75% of the respondents located in France would support changes to IFRSs as issued by the IASB (mostly banks and insurers or the organisations representing them)) while respondents from all other major Member States saw a only a 15% support for changes. Similarly, only 2 of the over 40 respondents from third countries supported EU flexibilty in adopting IFRSs. All supporters of flexibility in adoption indicated that “EU carve-ins” should be applied in very limited and well-defined circumstances, under strict conditions and with a sound (public) decision making process.

The responses to the consultation can be accessed in two ways on the EC website:

• Summary feedback report (21 pages)
• Table with overview responses (this allows for filtering, e.g. by country or by specific questions, however, individual replies cannot be accessed)

The Commission notes that it will report on the overall fitness check in a Commission Staff Working Document by mid-2019.

As Mr Scott explains, the IASB had not been very sympathetic to general calls to delay the IFRS 17 effective date, however, the Board's decision to consider possible amendments to the standard has created a situation of uncertainty that justifies a deferral of application.

The podcast (approx. 7 minutes) can be accessed through the press relase on the IASB website.

Below is an analysis of all changes that were made to the work plan since our last analysis on 26 October 2018.

Standard-setting projects

• Primary financial statements — a discussion paper or exposure draft is now expected in the second half of 2019 (was: first half of 2019)

Maintenance projects

• Deferred tax related to assets and liabilities arising from a single transaction (Amendments to IAS 12) — newly added to the work plan; an exposure draft is expected in the first half of 2019
• Disclosure Initiative — Definition of Material (Amendments to IAS 1 and IAS 8) — removed from the work plan as final amendments were published on 31 October 2018
• Updating a Reference to the Conceptual Framework (Amendments to IFRS 3) — at its November meeting, the IASB decided to move forward with amendments, so the next project step is now an exposure draft (no date given)

Research projects

• Financial instruments with characteristics of equity — feedback on the discussion paper is now expected in the first quarter of 2019 (was: first half of 2019)
• Share-based payment — removed from the work plan as a research summary was published on 31 October 2018

Other projects

• IFRS Taxonomy update — Common Practice (IFRS 13) — an analysis of the feedback received is now expected in January 2019 (was: first quarter of 2019)
• Revisions to the Preface to IFRSs — newly added to the work plan; finalised wording is expected in December 2018

The above is a faithful comparison of the IASB work plan at 26 October 2018 and at 17 November 2018. For access to the current IASB work plan at any time, please click here.