AC Insights

 provides audit committee members with a summary of financial reporting developments for public companies using IFRS or US GAAP, how those developments might affect their companies and things they may want to think about when reviewing financial reports. 

There were no new IFRS standards or amendments or interpretations to IFRSs issued during the first quarter of 2017. We have provided a summary of amendments to standards that are effective for years beginning after January 1, 2017. The changes are limited and provide companies with ample opportunity to work on the implementation of some major new standards effective for 2018.

In this edition, we report on several CSA developments resulting from reviews of continuous disclosure documents, enforcement actions, and staff notices. The findings on a review of disclosures of investment entities, cyber security risks and incidents, and disclosures through social media were released during the quarter. In addition, the CSA 2016 Enforcement Report was published. In addition, a staff notice was issued to outline voluntary protocols to improve the tabulation of vote proxies.

In SEC developments, we provide the annual list of highly inflationary companies that was discussed with the SEC staff late last year. On the technology front, the SEC has published the XBRL taxonomy for IFRS, which will require foreign private issuers to provide XBRL data, and hyperlinks to exhibits will be required in many filings. These developments are summarized in this edition.

CPAB has been working with several companies on a pilot project on audit quality indicators. Their interim report on this project is summarized under Auditing developments.

During the first quarter of 2017, the FASB has finalized four amendments to their standards and included in the Accounting Standards Codification some comments made by the SEC in late 2016. The amendments change the definition of a business used in many standards, primarily business combinations; simplified the goodwill impairment test; changed how employee net benefit costs are presented in the income statement; and clarified the accounting for transfers of nonfinancial assets. The SEC comments focused on disclosures of issued accounting standards not yet adopted by SEC registrants.

The US edition also discusses the CSA, SEC and auditing developments outlined in the Canadian edition above.