IFRS Foundation’s World Standard-setters Conference 2022: a summary
Delegates from national and regional accounting standard-setters around the world came
together in person for the first time since 2019, to Canary Wharf, London, for the IFRS
Foundation’s 2022 World Standard-setters Conference on 26-27 September.
It was also the first time that the Conference heard updates from both the International
Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the International Sustainability Standards Board
(ISSB).
More than 100 delegates from 60 organisations attended in person and online.
Below is a summary of the plenary sessions, which are available to watch here.
IASB update
Andreas Barckow, Chair of the IASB, and Nili Shah, IASB Executive Technical Director,
gave an update on the IASB’s work in the past year and its 22 active projects.
They spoke in detail about:
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the outcomes of the Third Agenda Consultation, published in July;
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the status of the Management Commentary project;
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progress in projects including Business Combinations under Common Control, Goodwill and Impairment, Financial Instruments with Characteristics of Equity, Dynamic Risk Management and Lease Liability in Sale and Leaseback; and
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the role and learning process around post-implementation reviews.
ISSB work
Emmanuel Faber, Chair of the ISSB, spoke for the first time at the conference
about the ISSB’s work to develop a global baseline of sustainability
disclosures.
He gave an update on the significant progress that has been made both at an
institutional level and in the technical work.
All 14 ISSB members have been appointed, creating a highly qualified standard-setting
board with a blend of professional expertise and from a range of geographies,
enabling the board to consider decisions from multiple angles.
He highlighted the importance of working with national and regional standard-setters
and how the ISSB is working with jurisdictions to ensure its Standards are
interoperable with jurisdiction-specific requirements.
He said that the ISSB’s aim is to complete its discussions on the feedback to its
consultation on the first two proposed IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards,
with the view to issue the final Standards for adoption as early as possible in
2023.
IFRS for SMEs Accounting Standard consultation
Later on in the conference, the project team for the Second Comprehensive Review of the IFRS for SMEs Accounting
Standard discussed the recently published consultation to update
the Standard, including why it is being done and its scope. The deadline for
comments is 7 March 2023.
The current consultation covers proposals to amend the IFRS for SMEs
Accounting Standard to reflect improvements that have been made
in IFRS Accounting Standards (in the scope of the second comprehensive review) while
keeping the Standard simple.
They also discussed how this Standard interacted with another project in the IASB
work plan: Subsidiaries
without Public Accountability: Disclosures.
Primary Financial Statements
Day two began with a progress update and a deep-dive into the details of the
Primary Financial Statements project.
This project proposes to improve how information is communicated in the financial
statements, with a focus on information in the statement of profit or loss.
The details of each proposal were delved into. The main proposals are additional
defined subtotals in the profit or loss statement, disclosures on Management
Performance Measures and strengthening requirements for disaggregating
information.
Outreach activities are also going to take place to see if the proposals will work in
practice with stakeholders.
Feedback on the proposed IFRS Sustainability Disclosures Standards
The last plenary session of the conference was an overview of the feedback on the
consultation on the first two IFRS Sustainability Disclosure
Standards—one
on climate-related disclosures and one on general sustainability-related disclosures.
The ISSB received more than 1,400 comment letters to its consultation and has
undertaken more than 400 outreach meetings during the consultation period. The
feedback to the consultation shows there is widespread interest in the ISSB’s work
and broad support for its proposals.