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 standards or amendments to standards issued by the IASB during its spring 2018 meetings.

The IASB has two major projects in progress. One project is considering how to revise and update the IFRS Practice Statement 1: Management Commentary. IPS 1 is a guideline for preparing management’s discussion and analysis and is not used by public companies in Canada, which are subject to requirements for MD&A under securities regulations. The other project is the development of an accounting model for rate-regulated activities. Finalization for these projects is not expected for a couple of years.

The IASB also continues to be focused on its disclosure initiative with a number of projects to update its standards. In addition, implementation activities for the new insurance contracts standard are considering challenges and clarifications needed to IFRS 17. We provide an outline of these issues in this edition of AC Insights.

In CSA developments, we cover two reports issued by the CSA on (a) excess distributions and non-GAAP measures for the real estate industry, and (b) climate change disclosures made by public companies. In addition, the AMF has issued its enforcement report, which highlights actions taken during 2017. Finally, we highlight the latest CSA guidance on coin and token offerings to address their concerns. The SEC has issued certain amendments to its rules to reduce the reporting burden on some companies and to facilitate XBRL reporting that is useful to investors.

In auditing developments, we highlight the final report by CPAB on its audit quality indicators project, some AICPA audit committee tools on cybersecurity and the new leases accounting standard, and COSO developments on its Enterprise Risk Management Framework.

The FASB completed its maintenance projects related to nonemployee share-based payments and the elimination of the special guidance on deferred income taxes for depository and lending institutions. These changes are outlined in this edition of AC Insights.

The FASB expects to complete its work on long-duration insurance contracts by the end of the next quarter. One other major project is in progress dealing with the classification of financial instruments as liabilities or equity. The FASB has several maintenance projects and expects to complete several of them in the next quarter including targeted amendments, technical corrections and improvements to the leasing standard.

The US edition also covers the CSA, SEC and Auditing developments discussed in the Canadian edition.