Tentative Board Decisions

Tentative Board decisions are provided for those interested in following the Board´s deliberations. All of the reported decisions are tentative and may be changed at future Board meetings.

August 20, 2014 FASB Board Meeting

Financial Instruments—Classification and Measurement. The Board continued redeliberating the February 2013 proposed Accounting Standards Update, Financial Instruments—Overall (Subtopic 825-10): Recognition and Measurement of Financial Assets and Financial Liabilities, specifically discussing the impairment of investments in equity securities not measured at fair value with changes in fair value recognized in net income on a recurring basis and disclosures about hybrid instruments containing bifurcated embedded derivatives.

Impairment of Investments in Equity Securities not Measured at Fair Value on a Recurring Basis

The Board affirmed the impairment guidance in the proposed Update for an investment in an equity security without a readily determinable fair value that does not qualify for the practical expedient to estimate fair value in accordance with the net asset value (NAV) and for which the entity has elected to apply the practicability exception to carry the investment at cost minus impairment, adjusted for observable price changes.

The Board also discussed impairment for investments in equity securities accounted for under the equity method of accounting but did not make any technical decisions on this topic. The Board requested that the staff conduct further research and present the topic for discussion at a future Board meeting.

Disclosures about Hybrid Instruments Containing Bifurcated Embedded Derivatives

The Board decided to enhance the disclosures about bifurcated embedded derivatives by requiring disclosure of the carrying amount, measurement attribute, and line item within the balance sheet in which the bifurcated embedded derivatives and related host contracts are presented.

The Board decided to expose these disclosures for public comment. The Board will decide at a later date whether that exposure will be made either as a separate project or as part of an existing project.


Disclosure Framework: Disclosure Review—Defined Benefit Plans. The Board discussed different ways of promoting the appropriate use of discretion by reporting entities in applying annual disclosure requirements for defined benefit plans (including nonretirement postemployment benefits) in employers´ financial statements.

The Board made no technical decisions.