The Board came to the following conclusions.

Goodwill and impairment: The staff aim to begin the process for preparing a Discussion Paper in Q3 2019 and to publish it towards the end of this year.  At this meeting the Board decided which preliminary views it wishes to express in the DP:

• a) New disclosure objectives about the rationale for the business combination and disclosure requirements about how the entity plans to assess whether the combination is meeting its objectives and the measures reported to the CDOM.
• b) That the amortisation of goodwill not be reintroduced.
• c) That the requirement to undertake a quantitative impairment test annually be removed and replaced with an impairment-indicator approach (for goodwill and intangible assets with indefinite useful lives or not yet available for use).
• d)removing the requirement to exclude from the calculation of value-in-use cash flows that are expected to arise from a future restructuring or enhancement.,
• e) Removing references to pre-tax cash flows and discount rates and instead requiring that the assumptions about cash flows and discount rates be internally consistent.
• f) A subtotal of total equity before goodwill be required to be disclosed.

Primary Financial Statements: This is the last meeting planned before the staff intend to begin the process of preparing an exposure draft that will propose a replacement of, or revisions to, IAS 1. At this meeting, the Board decided that:

• a) exchange differences and gains and losses on derivatives be classified into the section (i.e operating, financing or investing) to which they relate, with special guidance for derivatives;
• b) incremental expenses related to an investment (those expenses that would not have been incurred if the investment had not been made) be classified as investing;
• c) the income tax effect of MPM adjustments be based on a reasonable pro-rata allocation of the current and deferred tax of the entity in the tax jurisdiction, or another method which achieves more appropriate allocation, and the approach taken disclosed;
• d) entities not be required to disclose how and why the MPM differs from the total of the measure of profit or loss for the reportable segments; and
• e) the requirements not be effective for 12 to 24 months after publication and that comparative information would be required to be reclassified.

Proposed amendments to IAS 16: The Board decided to finalise the proposal to require that proceeds generated when testing if an asset is functioning be recognised in income (rather than a reduction of the cost of the asset) and to clarify the meaning of ‘testing’. 

Rate-regulated activities: The staff aim to begin the process for preparing an exposure draft in July or September and to publish it in the first quarter next year. At this meeting, the Board decided that:

• a) the descriptions of the scope criteria and the definitions of regulatory assets and liabilities be refined, a reference to fines payable be included in the explanation of total allowed compensation and that the Board retain its earlier decisions about recognition and not develop further derecognition requirements;
• b) regulatory assets and liabilities be measured by discounting the estimated future cash flows arising from the regulatory assets (including the cash flows relating to the regulatory interest or return), using the regulatory interest or return rate unless there is any indication that that rate is not adequate. An exception is regulatory assets and liabilities that relate to expenses or income that will be included in/deducted from the future rate(s) when cash is paid/received. They are adjusted for risks that are not present in the related liability or asset.
• c) the model not include a separate step to assess whether the effects of the time value of money and risks inherent in the cash flows are significant or a practical expedient that would avoid the need for discounting if the effects of the time and risks are not significant.
• d) an indicator-based approach be used to assess whether the regulatory interest rate or return rate is adequate. The minimum adequate rate is one that the entity would expect to receive for a stream of cash flows with the same timing and uncertainty as those of the regulatory asset. If the rate provided by the agreement is inadequate the minimum adequate rate is used for initial and subsequent measurement. The same measurement requirements apply to regulatory liabilities and assets, except in the limited circumstances when that rate is affected by an identifiable event or transaction that should be recognised separately.
• e) Regulatory income and expense that is related to a particular income or expense line item be presented immediately above or below that line item (for both profit or loss and OCI line items) with all other regulatory income and expenses presented immediately below the revenue line in profit or loss. Regulatory interest or returns accrued on regulatory assets or liabilities must be disclosed as a separate caption (either in the breakdown of regulatory income/expense for the period or the regulatory asset and liability reconciliations).

There are also papers summarising the similarities and differences between the proposed model and US GAAP requirements and the Board’s tentative decisions to date.

Business Combinations under Common Control: The Board agreed that distinguishing between combinations in which the non-controlling shareholders of the receiving entity get a residual interest in the transferred entities or businesses is a viable approach to explore in determining when to apply a current value approach, and when to apply a form of a predecessor approach.

Financial instruments with the characteristics of equity: The Board discussed detailed analysis of the comment letter feedback received about the Discussion Paper on a selection of topics: The Board’s preferred approach; Classification of non-derivative financial instruments; Classification of derivative financial instruments; Compound instruments and redemption obligation arrangements; the Puttable exception; and IFRIC 2 instruments. 

Comprehensive review of the IFRS for SMEs Standard: The Board plans to issue a Request for Information (RFI) in the second half of 2019. The Board decided that the RFI propose that IFRS 13 Fair value Measurement, IFRS 9 Financial Instruments and IFRS 16 Leases be incorporated in the SME Standard, with some simplifications but that IFRS 14 Regulatory Deferral Accounts not be incorporated.

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

Mr Hoogervorst began with an overview of the PFS project and provided comments related to subtotals (definition of operating profits and profit before financing and tax), labeling non-GAAP measurement as ‘management performance measures’, improvements to disaggregation, the disclosure of ‘unusual’ items of income or expenses, and the impact the PFS proposals will have to the quality and usefulness of the income statement.

Next, Mr Hoogervorst commented on the importance of management commentary (a topic he also covered in similar speech at the Climate-Related Financial Reporting Conference in April 2019) to provide broader financial information, such as the impact of intangibles. He mentioned the need to update the Management Commentary Practice Statement to accommodate new advances made in the environmental, sustainability and governance reporting space.

For more information, see the transcript of his speech on the IASB’s website.

The agenda for the DPOC meeting is summarised below.

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

The agenda for the meeting is sum­marised below:

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

In his more general remarks on the global economy, Mr Liikanen noted that the economic growth cycle is now maturing, with various factors that may impede its longevity. In fact, he noted, globalisation itself faces some challenges around the world.

Mr Liikanen then turned to the academic debate on whether digitalisation, the process of leveraging technology and digitisation to improve business performance can take up the slack in productivity. He described two schools of thought that have emerged and concluded that technology is an important enabler, but it needs to work itself through and the real benefits will only come once the procedures can be fully implemented.

Turning then to financial reporting, Mr Liikanen noted that investors seek diversification and investment opportunities. The digitisation of financial information can help them to achieve these goals if it facilitates cross-border transactions and supports transparent, accountable and efficient financial markets in a digital world.

At this point, Mr Liikanen pointed to the IFRS Taxonomy and and its increasing adoption around the world - most recently in Europe. He promised that the IFRS Foundation will continue to explore how technological developments affect the way financial information is consumed and what this means for the Foundation's Taxonomy strategy, as well as how technology-related innovations affect the standard-setting process.

Concluding, Mr Liikanen noted that the IFRS Foundation is about to embark on its own digital transformation. He pointed at a long-term plan for the IFRS Foundation to completely overhaul its technology systems that was signed off at the last meeting of the Trustees (the report from the meeting offers little detail but notes that plan will be discussed again at the next meeting of the Trustees, which will take place on 25-27 June 2019 in Munich).

Please click to access the full text of Mr Liikanen's speech on the IASB website.

The new guidelines on reporting climate-related information integrate the recommendations of the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) of the Financial Stability Board (FSB).

In short, the new guidelines:

• accompany and are consistent with the EU Non-Financial Reporting Directive published in November 2014;
• supplement the general guidelines on non-financial reporting published in July 2017, which are still applicable;
• are based on proposals from Technical Expert Group (TEG) on Sustainable Finance published in January 2019;
• integrate the recommendations of the TCFD published in June 2017; and
• are not legally binding.

The new guidelines can be downloaded from the EC website, which also offers a press release, a short summary of the guidelines, and frequently asked questions.

For translations of the guidelines into all official languages of the European Union, please refer to the Official Journal of the European Union.

In addition, the Commission welcomes three important expert reports published by the TEG on sustainable finance (all links to the EC website):

• A taxonomy for environmentally-sustainable economic activities that provides practical guidance for policy makers, industry and investors on how best to support and invest in economic activities that contribute to achieving a climate neutral economy.
• A report on an EU Green Bond Standard recommending clear and comparable criteria for issuing green bonds.
• A report on EU climate benchmarks and benchmarks' ESG disclosures setting out the methodology and minimum technical requirements for indices that will enable investors to orient the choice of investors who wish to adopt a climate-conscious investment strategy, and address the risk of greenwashing.

The CMAC is a group of pro­fes­sional financial analysts who meet three times a year with members of the IASB to provide the views of pro­fes­sional investors on financial reporting issues.

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

We support the IASB’s response in proposing amendments to both IFRS 9 and IAS 39 that deal with the immediate need of addressing the effect of the uncertainty arising from changes in benchmark interest rates on the “highly probable” requirement for cash flow hedges and the designated risk for cash flow and fair value hedges and suggest the IASB work on finalizing these amendments and begin the work on its second phase of amendments concurrently.

In addition, we believe there is a lack of clarity in (1) the application to retrospective hedge effectiveness, (2) the measurement of hedge ineffectiveness, and (3) whether the amounts deferred in the cash flow hedge reserve should be reclassified to profit or loss when the entity ceases applying the amendment.

Please download the full comment letter here.

EFRAG agrees that most IASB proposals will improve the Due Process Handbook; however, it proposes that major projects should have detailed effect analysis reports issued when key due process documents are issued. In ad­di­tional, the EFRAG suggests that the IASB should “ensure in its due process that agenda decisions only contain explanatory material and references to the mandatory content of IFRS Standards and that diversity in practice and IFRS-like guidance is addressed through standard-setting such as through the annual improvements process.”

Comments on EFRAG's draft comment letter are requested by 12 July 2019. For more in­for­ma­tion, see the press release and the draft comment letter on the EFRAG website.

New Issues

The Committee decided to publish seven new tentative Agenda Decisions. These summaries reflect our understanding from the Committee’s discussions. The tentative decisions will be published in due course.  

IFRS 16 Leases — Incremental borrowing rate —The definition of incremental borrowing rate does not explicitly require a lessee to determine its incremental borrowing rate to reflect the interest rate in a loan with a similar payment profile to the lease payments.

IFRS 16 Leases — Lease term and useful life of leasehold improvement — (a) An  entity considers the economics of a contract when determining the enforceable period of the lease, and not only any contractual termination payment (such as the cost of abandoning or dismantling leasehold improvements). (b) IAS 16 provides sufficient guidance to enable an entity to determine the useful life of non-removable leasehold improvements. The life is not limited to the lease term of the related lease but the lease term must be considered in determining the useful life.

IFRS 9 Financial Instruments — Fair value hedge of foreign currency risk on non-financial assets — Foreign currency risk can be a separately identifiable and reliably measurable risk component of a non-financial asset held for consumption  that an entity can designate as the hedged item in a fair value hedge accounting relationship. 

IAS 7 Statement of Cash Flows — Changes in liabilities arising from financing activities — The requirements in IAS 7 for information about changes in liabilities arising from financing activities required by IAS 7 are clear.

IAS 1 Presentation of Financial Statements — Presentation of an uncertain tax position — A liability related to uncertain tax treatments is a current (or deferred) tax liability and not a provision.

IFRS 15 Revenue from Contracts with Customers — Compensation for delays or cancellations — An an obligation to compensate customers for delayed or cancelled flights (as set out in legislation) is recognised as part of the transaction price and not an obligation in accordance with IAS 37.

IAS 41 Agriculture — Subsequent expenditure — IAS 41 allows an entity to Capitalise or expense the costs related to the biological transformation of biological assets.

Agenda decisions finalised

The Committee finalised four tentative agenda decisions.

IFRS 15 Revenue from Contracts with Customers — Costs to fulfil a contract — When revenue is recognised over time (in this case from a property sale, using the output method to measure progress) any costs incurred to fulfil the performance obligation are recognised as an expense when they are incurred.

IFRS 16 Leases — subsurface rights — When a contract between a land owner and another party gives the other party the right to place an oil pipeline in a specified underground space, with the land owner retaining the right to use the surface area of the land above the pipeline, that contract contains a lease.

IAS 19 Employee Benefits — Effect of a potential discount on plan classification — The existence of a potential discount on the contribution an entity is obliged to make to a post-employment benefit plan, if the ratio of plan asserts to plan liabilities exceeds a set level, does not preclude the plan from being a defined contribution plan.

Holdings of a cryptocurrency — A cryptocurrency does not meet the definitions of cash or a financial asset. It meets the definition of an intangible asset is accounted for in accordance with IAS 38, unless it the cryptocurrency is held for sale in the ordinary course of business—in which case IAS 2 applies.

Continuing discussions

The Committee discussed potential narrow-scope amendments to IAS 21 to define “exchangeability” and a “lack of exchangeability” and specify the requirements that would apply when there a lack of exchangeability in a currency.

Work in progress

The staff have received requests in relation to the definition of a lease and foreign operations in consolidated financial statements. The staff are in the process of analysing those matters.

More information

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