As reported in this month's round up, some international standard setting bodies are getting a streamlined name change. By Nick Topazio, reporting specialist, CIMA.
Names changes in international standard setting
The IASC foundation has changed its name to the IFRS foundation. The International Financial Reporting Interpretations Committee (IFRIC) and the Standards Advisory Council (SAC) have been renamed as the IFRS Interpretations Committee and the IFRS Advisory Council respectively.
The name of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) will remain unchanged.
EFRAG consults on proactive work
The European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) is working on projects in corporate income tax, business combinations under common control and a disclosure framework. Possible future projects include:
- European perspective on development of post implementation reviews
- European input to the IASB’s post implementation review of IFRS 3 Business Combinations
- European Input to the IASB’s post implementation review of IFRS 8 Operating Segments
- post-implementation review of IFRIC 12 Service Concession Arrangements
- government grants
- understanding the decision environments of users of the financial report
- application of IFRS to individual financial statements
- performance reporting – phase 3
- share based payments.
The public consultation closes on 30 September 2010. To access the consultation paper and / or comment to CIMA go to my blog on CIMASphere.
IASB proposes fair value disclosure changes
In May 2009 the IASB’s exposure draft fair value measurement proposed a three-level fair value hierarchy that categorises observable and non-observable market data used as inputs for fair value measurements. According to that hierarchy, level 3 inputs are unobservable inputs used for fair value measurement of assets or liabilities for which market data are not available.
In response to comments received, the IASB proposes to enhance the disclosure requirements to reflect the interdependencies between unobservable inputs used to measure fair value at level 3. The exposure draft is open for comment until 7 September. To access the exposure draft and / or comment to CIMA go to my blog on CIMASphere.
UNITED KINGDOM
UK publishes its first stewardship code
The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has published the first stewardship code for institutional investors following the publication in May 2010 of the updated UK corporate governance code for listed companies.
The code includes principles on:
- the monitoring of investee companies
- the escalation of activities taken to protect or enhance shareholder value
- collective engagement
- voting policy
- managing conflicts of interest
- public reporting and reporting to clients.
The purpose of the code is to improve the quality of corporate governance through promoting better dialogue between shareholders and company boards; and encourage transparency about the way in which investors oversee the companies they own. You can access the new code via the FRC website.
The future of UK GAAP
The Accounting Standards Board has requested input to inform its impact assessment on proposed changes to UK GAAP. The changes will be formally proposed later in the year in a financial reporting exposure draft (FRED). The impact assessment will identify the costs and benefits of introducing a new UK GAAP regime more closely anchored in IFRS than previously.
The proposed system will have three tiers as follows:
|
|
Nature of entity |
Accounting regime |
|
Tier 1 |
Entities that have public accountability |
EU-adopted IFRS |
|
Tier 2 |
Entities that do not have public accountability |
UK-adopted IFRS for SMEs |
|
Tier 3 |
Small entities |
FRSSE |
In addition there will be disclosure exemptions for subsidiaries and small companies that would otherwise be categorised as tier 1 or 2. To read more about the background to this project see my blog published in August 2009. To read the latest proposals in full and / or leave a comment for CIMA see my recent blog.
The deadline for comments to the ASB is 20 August 2010.