SUMMARY OF BOARD DECISIONS

Summary of Board decisions are provided for the information and convenience of constituents who want to follow the Board’s deliberations. All of the conclusions reported are tentative and may be changed at future Board meetings. Decisions are included in an Exposure Draft for formal comment only after a formal written ballot. Decisions in an Exposure Draft may be (and often are) changed in redeliberations based on information provided to the Board in comment letters, at public roundtable discussions, and through other communication channels. Decisions become final only after a formal written ballot to issue an Accounting Standards Update.

November 10, 2010 FASB Board Meeting

Going concern. The Board discussed a summary of key issues raised by external reviewers on a preliminary staff draft of a proposed Accounting Standards Update for this project. The Board decided that those issues should be deliberated at a future meeting and the staff draft revised based on the deliberations. Because this project may overlap with rules and standards of the SEC and the PCAOB, the Board directed the staff to obtain SEC and PCAOB input on the revised draft.

Disclosure of certain loss contingencies. The staff summarized for the Board comments received on the July 2010 Exposure Draft, Contingencies (Topic 450): Disclosure of Certain Loss Contingencies, and the major issues to be redeliberated. The Board did not reach any decisions at this meeting. The Board directed the staff to work with the staffs of the SEC and PCAOB to understand their efforts in addressing investor concerns about the disclosure of certain loss contingency through increased focus on compliance with existing rules. The Board also directed the staff to review filings for the 2010 calendar year-end reporting cycle to determine if those efforts have resulted in improved disclosures about loss contingences. The Board will begin redeliberations at a future meeting.


Disclosures about an employer’s participation in a multiemployer plan. The September 2010 Exposure Draft, Compensation—Retirement Benefits—Multiemployer Plans (Subtopic 715-80): Disclosure about an Employer’s Participation in a Multiemployer Plan, had proposed that public entities would begin providing enhanced disclosures in financial statements for fiscal years ending after December 15, 2010, with a one-year deferral for nonpublic entities. The Board decided that a final standard will not be effective for the 2010 calendar year-end reporting period. It will decide on an effective date at a future meeting, after it has substantially concluded its redeliberations.


Investment properties. The Board discussed (1) a summary of outreach activities relating to the effect of requiring fair value measurement for investment property as defined by IAS 40, Investment Property, and (2) scope-related issues resulting from that outreach. The Board instructed the staff to develop a scope proposal that would include entities whose primary activities are investing in real estate and who have some characteristics similar to investment companies, for example, the entity has unrelated investors, and the entity intends to provide investors with returns from both rental income and capital appreciation.

The Board agreed that lessors of properties that are outside the scope of the investment properties guidance would be affected by the FASB Exposure Draft, Leases (Topic 840), and should therefore focus their attention and comments to the Board on that proposed guidance.


Agenda decision announcement: technical corrections and clarifications of the FASB Accounting Standards Codification™. The acting FASB chairman added a standing project to the FASB’s agenda to address feedback received from stakeholders on the FASB Accounting Standards Codification™. The FASB staff will review feedback, aggregate items that meet the scope of the project with other submissions, and discuss recommended Codification amendments with the FASB at one or more public meetings. The FASB will periodically issue an Exposure Draft to seek public comment on any proposed amendments. The Board decided to limit the types of issues that it will consider through this project to minor changes to clarify the Codification or correct unintended consequences that are not expected to have a significant effect on current accounting practice or create a significant administrative cost to most entities.