The consultation marks another step in the implementation of the EC's action plan on sustainable finance published in March 2018, which last saw the publication of a report on companies' disclosure of climate-related information by the Technical Expert Group on Sustainable Finance set up by the EC. The report contained recommendations intended to allow the EC to update its non-binding guidelines on non-financial reporting with specific reference to climate-related information, in line with the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) established by the Financial Stability Board.

Stakeholders are invited to comment on the draft supplement by the end of Wednesday 20 March 2019, through the online facility created for this purpose.

Please click to access the EC consultation page offering access to the draft supplement and the online questionnaire.

The Forum will be held in conjunction with the Journal of International Accounting Research (JIAR). The call for papers inviting submissions that can provide evidence to inform the standard-setting activities of the IASB notes the following areas of particular interest:

• Convergence between the IASB and the FASB;
• Evidence relevant to the forthcoming post-implementation reviews of IFRS 10 Consolidated Financial Statements, IFRS 11 Joint Arrangements, IFRS 12 Disclosure of Interests in Other Entities and IFRS 5 Non-current Assets Held for Sale and Discontinued Operations;
• The challenges of conducting effective post-implementation reviews;
• World-wide use of IFRS and the IFRS for SMEs;
• Intangible assets;
• Liabilities vs. equity;
• Performance reporting/primary financial statements;
• Rule- vs. principles-based accounting standards; and
• Projects on any other topics on the IASB research agenda or in the research pipeline.

Please click for more information on the IASB website.

The 14-minute podcast features discussions of the following topics in more detail:

• IFRS 17 Insurance Contracts
• IBOR reform
• IFRS for SMEs review
• Management commentary
• Primary financial statements

The podcast is available on YouTube. More information on the topics discussed is available through our comprehensive notes taken by Deloitte observers at the February IASB meeting.

The group’s mem­ber­ship includes:

• Cristina Bage-Friborg, company, Sweden
• Michel Bande, civil society organization, Belgium
• Piotr Biernacki, user, Poland
• Jean-Francois Coppenolle, financial institution, UK
• Eric Dugelay, accountancy profession, France
• Aurelie Faure Schuyer, user, France
• Elena Flor, financial institution, Italy
• Antonio Fuertes Zurita, company, Spain
• Andrea Gasperini, user, Italy
• Giulia Genuardi, company, Italy
• Andreas Horn, company, Germany
• Andre Jakobs, financial institution, The Netherlands
• Bertrand Janus, company, France
• Kristina Jeromin, user, Germany
• Michele Lacroix, user, France
• Anna Lindberg, financial institution, Sweden
• Alexandra Middleton, academic, Finland
• Miroslav Petkov, user, Bulgaria
• Alice Peyrard, company, France
• Nicole Röttmer, accountancy profession, Germany
• Matthias Schmidt, accountancy profession, Germany
• Jane Thostrup Jagd, consultant, Denmark
• Michael Zimonyi, civil society organization, Hungary

For more in­for­ma­tion, see the press release on the EFRAG website.

To mark the launch of the European Lab and its first project on climate-related reporting, a high-level conference entitled Fostering Innovation in Corporate Reporting will take place on the afternoon of 5 March 2019 in Brussels. European Commission Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis will deliver the keynote speech and Richard Howitt, IIRC CEO and former MEP, will set the scene for the conference panel discussions. For access to the full programme of the conference and registration, see the press release on the EFRAG website.

These intangibles may include the value of the workforce, knowhow, customer relationships, brands and a pipeline of new products. IFRSs only allow for a restricted recognition of these assets, hence the gap. Many intangibles will be assets if purchased directly or as part of an acquisition. Of internal spend, the development costs of new products or processes meeting six criteria (about the likelihood that the project will achieve commercial returns) specified in IAS 38 Intangible Assets must be recognised as assets. Whether those criteria are met can be a matter of judgement giving management considerable scope to decide whether they prefer to expense these costs as incurred or to capitalise them.

A new report The capitalisation debate: R&D expenditure, disclosure content and quantity and stakeholder views provides comprehensive evidence of the current state of accounting for research and developments (R&D) by IFRS reporters and some of the factors that may lie behind it. Please click to read the full report.

In addition, the webcast discusses performance obligations, value transferred, when to recognise revenue, contract asset and liability, and disclosure requirements.

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

The Board decided to propose amending IFRS 9 Financial Instruments and IAS 39 Financial Instruments: Recognition and Measurement to provide relief from the effects of uncertainties caused by the reform of IBOR. The Board will consider in March whether the relief should be optional. The Exposure Draft is likely to have a short comment period, enabling any amendments to be finalised and published by December 2019, with an effective date of 1 January 2020.

The Board continued to assess concerns and implementation challenges raised by stakeholders about the requirements in IFRS 17 Insurance Contracts. The Board decided to propose amending that IFRS 17 and IFRS 9 allow an entity to apply either IFRS 17 or IFRS 9 to insurance contracts for which the only insurance in the contract is for the settlement of some, or all, of the obligations created by the contract (with consequential amendments to the disclosure requirements). The Board decided that the transition requirements in IFRS 17 be retained, except for a liability that relates to the settlement of claims incurred before an insurance contract was acquired. The Board decided to propose a change to the modified retrospective approach that would require an entity to classify such liabilities as a liability for incurred claims (to the extent that it does not have reasonable and supportable information to apply a retrospective approach) and to permit an entity applying the fair value approach to choose to classify such liabilities as a liability for incurred claims.

For the Primary Financial Statements project, the Board decided to modify some of its earlier decisions. Within the statement of cash flows, the starting point for the reconciliation of operating cash flows should be the operating profit subtotal, for all entities. Additionally, all entities should classify cash flows from dividends paid as financing cash flows and cash flows from dividends received from equity-accounted associates and joint ventures as investing cash flows. However, the Board also decided on some special requirements, for both the statement of cash flows and the statement(s) of profit or loss and other comprehensive income, for entities that have as their main business activity providing financing to customers or investing in assets that generate a return individually and largely independently of other resources held by the entity. The Board also approved additional proposals related to aggregation and disaggregation of information in the primary financial statements and in the notes, including a requirement to describe items in a way that faithfully represents the items they aggregate.

The Board considered a project plan for a comprehensive review of the IFRS for SMEs Standard that proposes the publication of a Request for Information by about July 2019, an Exposure Draft sometime between January 2020 and February 2021 and amendments between July 2021 and May 2022. The IFRS for SMEs Standard does not reflect the current requirements in IFRS 3, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 or 17.

The staff also gave an oral update on the projects on Management Commentary project.

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

The topics discussed at the meeting included:

• IASB technical update. An update was given on IASB activities since the last GPF meeting.
• Primary financial state­ments. The GPF members provided feedback on the IASB’s tentative decisions related to primary financial statements. Specifically, they discussed defined subtotals in the statement of financial performance, management performance measures, and disaggregation.
• Management commentary. The GPF members discussed developments in the project to update IFRS Practice Statement 1 Management Commentary (Practice Statement), including the objective of management commentary, applying materiality in preparing management commentary, and principles of preparing management commentary.
• Goodwill and im­pair­ment. The GPF members provided feedback on the disclosure objectives and requirements in development to provide users more information about a business combination and performance.
• Financial instruments with characteristics of equity. The GPF members were provided with an overview of the key proposals in the Discussion Paper DP/2018/1 Financial Instruments with Characteristics of Equity.

The next GPF meeting will be held on 22 March 2019.

The full meeting summary is available on the IASB's website.

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has launched a discussion paper A Closer Look at Water and GHG Emissions Disclosure, which contains key findings on corporate reporting on water and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The publication encourages active dialogue between data producers (report issuers) and data users (investors and data service providers). Please click for more information and access to the discussion paper on the GRI website.

The Growth and Emerging Market Committee (GEMC) of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) has published a consultation report Sustainable finance in emerging markets and the role of securities regulators, which proposes 11 recommendations for emerging market member jurisdictions to consider when issuing regulations or guidance regarding sustainable financial instruments. Among other things, the recommendations propose requirements for disclosure of material Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) specific risks, aimed at enhancing transparency. Please click to access the report on the IOSCO website.

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and the Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB) released a report on the corporate sustainability reporting landscape in Japan. The report highlights that there’s growing market demand for more information on ESG issues and considerations. Please click for more information and access to the report on the CDSB website.

The International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) has published new report Integrated Reporting in Turkey. The report aims to reveal perspectives of the Turkish business world through the lens of integrated reporting, the current corporate reporting practices, and the future expectations and orientations of the companies. Please click for more information and access to the report on the IIRC website.

The UK Goverment has issued updated Environmental Reporting Guidelines: Including streamlined energy and carbon reporting guidance. The guidelines include two new chapters - 1: Steps in reporting your environmental impacts and 2: Guidance on streamlined energy and carbon reporting. It also outlines additional voluntary information that is likely to be useful to organisations and a wide range of stakeholders. Please click to access the updated guidance on the UK government website.

The Carbon Trust has published a summary of its findings on climate risk disclosure, in which it reveals that two-thirds (67%) of UK corporates plan to disclose climate-related risks and opportunities in their 2019 annual reports. Please click for more information and access to an infographic on the Carbon Trust website.

XBRL International has provided a comment letter on the EU’s draft report on climate-related disclosures, urging the EU to help work to make this kind of reporting comparable, digital, discoverable and accessible. XBRL International supports streamlining climate disclosure, believing that comparable and usable disclosures are vital to help investors navigate this complicated field. Please click for more information and access to the comment letter on the XBRL International website.

Below is an analysis of all changes that were made to the work plan since our last analysis on 25 January 2019.

Stan­dard-set­ting projects

• No changes.

Main­te­nance projects

• 2019 Comprehensive Review of the IFRS for SMEs Standard — This project has been added to the work plan. A request for information is expected in H2 2019.

Research projects

• No changes.

Other projects

• Due Process Handbook Review — This project has been added to the work plan. An exposure draft is expected in the second quarter of 2019.

The above is a faithful com­par­i­son of the IASB work plan at 25 January 2019 and at 11 February 2019. For access to the current IASB work plan at any time, please click here.