A European example of problems in derecognizing financial instruments Here’s another of the issues from some extracts of enforcement decisions recently issued by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) (for more background see here): “In 2011, the issuer granted a loan to its ultimate parent through a facility agreement and arranged issuance of preferred…
IASB Chair Hans Hoogervorst recently delivered another strangely underwhelming speech, this time on the topic of “Accounting and moral hazard.” The speech is handicapped by the absence of any explanation of what Hoogervorst takes the term “moral hazard” to mean, perhaps on the basis that it seems so obvious that it doesn’t need explaining. Paul Krugman…
A European example of the importance of information about new standards issued but not yet implemented Here’s another of the issues from some extracts of enforcement decisions recently issued by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) (for more background see here): “The issuer’s annual financial statements have been prepared in accordance with IFRS as…
The Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada and the Canadian Investor Relations Institute have jointly issued a draft discussion brief: Interim Reporting Strategies, which is open for comment until the end of April 2014. To obtain this post, and additional articles on IFRS by other writers, go to http://ifrs.wiley.com/news/interim-reporting-strategies-a-canadian-perspective (subscription required, but free trial available)
The IASB has issued an exposure draft of proposed amendments to IAS 1 resulting from its Disclosure Initiative, with comments to be received by July 23, 2014. The proposed narrow-focus amendments “will clarify some of (the Standard’s) presentation and disclosure requirements to ensure entities are able to use judgment when applying that Standard… (responding) to…
From Australia comes another contribution to the seemingly endless debate about disclosure overload This is an Australian Accounting Standards Board staff paper titled “To Disclose or Not to Disclose: Materiality is the Question” (a Google search confirms my feeling that this Hamlet-derived formulation has been used far too often to be effective now, including in…
Is XBRL the future of financial reporting asks Tom Selling in the title of a recent post on his Accounting Onion website, immediately answering his own question with an exuberant “YES!” Here’s part of his argument: “..the FASB should take it as a given that XBRL will be a game changer for accounting standards. For…
“IFRS could be stripped of accountancy watchdog role”, says the title of a recent article in the UK Telegraph newspaper. According to the writer, Louise Armitstead, the IFRS Foundation “has been severely criticized by MEPs (Members of the European Parliament) for poor governance structures, a lack of transparency and its ‘close links to the accounting…
Although financial reporting has brought a miraculous amount of clarity and structure to the world, it’s also responsible for a colossal volume of wasted time…. A recent manifestation of this is IFRIC Interpretation 21 Levies, effective for annual periods beginning on or after January 1, 2014. IFRIC 21 was driven by requests for guidance on…
The IASB has issued IFRS 14 Regulatory Deferral Accounts, effective for annual periods beginning on or after January 1, 2016. For those who aren’t familiar with the area, IFRS 14 brings into IFRS for the first time a practice long-established elsewhere, that entities subject to rate-regulation (power suppliers and suchlike) can justify recognizing assets and…
John Hughes IFRS Blog 