February 2021

The Trustees of the IFRS Foundation met this month to review responses to the first three questions asked by their Consultation Paper on Sustainability Reporting. The responses indicate growing and urgent demand to improve the global consistency and comparability in sustainability reporting, as well as broad demand for the IFRS Foundation to play a role in this.

The amendments will help companies to improve accounting policy disclosures so that they provide more useful information to investors and other primary users of the financial statements, and to distinguish changes in accounting estimates from changes in accounting policies.

The Board has proposed to extend by one year the application period of the amendment to IFRS 16 Leases issued in 2020 to help lessees accounting for covid-19-related rent concessions. Comments on this consultation closed on 25 February 2021 and a Supplementary Board meeting is planned for early March—details will be published here when they are available.

Hans Hoogervorst and Sue Lloyd, Board Chair and Vice-Chair respectively, talk about the supplementary meeting held on 4 February to discuss IFRS 16 Leases as well as topics discussed at the regular monthly meeting, which included Financial Instruments with Characteristics of Equity and Extractive Activities. You can also read the full IASB Update from the February meeting.

The IFRS Interpretations Committee met on 2 February 2021. Read the summary of their discussions on topics such as Sale and Leaseback of an Asset in a Single-Asset Entity (IFRS 10 Consolidated Financial Statements and IFRS 16 Leases) and tentative agenda decisions on Costs Necessary to Sell Inventories (IAS 2 Inventories) and Preparation of Financial Statements when an Entity is No Longer a Going Concern (IAS 10 Events after the Reporting Period).

Academics are being called upon to help the Board with various projects, specifically the post-implementation reviews of three IFRS Standards. Staff hosted webinars for academics on this topic and you can watch the recordings:

• How can academics inform post-implementation reviews of IFRS 15?
• How can academics inform post-implementation reviews of IFRS 9 and IFRS 16?

With a number of consultations underway, the technical teams have hosted a few live webinars and workshops. Recordings are available for the following:

• Webinar: Exposure Draft Regulatory Assets and Regulatory Liabilities
• Virtual workshop: Discussion Paper Business Combinations under Common Control
• Webinar: Discussion Paper Business Combinations under Common Control
• Webinar for national standard-setters: Request for Information Post-implementation Review of IFRS 10, IFRS 11 and IFRS 12