Welcome to this week’s Technical Roundup.
In developments this week, following public consultation, IAASA has issued a revised version of ISA (Ireland) 600 Special Considerations – Audits of Group Financial Statements (Including the Work of Component Auditors) and conforming amendments; the Financial Reporting Council has announced an increase in the number of signatories to the UK Stewardship Code following the publication of its updated list.
Read more on these and other developments that may be of interest to members below.
Financial Reporting
The European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) has released a podcast on its recent discussion paper Accounting for variable consideration – from a purchaser’s perspective.
EFRAG has also released a summary report on its recent conference entitled “Where is Corporate Reporting heading?”
Auditing
IAASA issues a revised version of ISA (Ireland) 600
Following public consultation, IAASA has issued a revised version of ISA (Ireland) 600 Special Considerations – Audits of Group Financial Statements (Including the Work of Component Auditors) and conforming amendments. https://iaasa.ie/iaasa-issues-a-revised-version-of-isa-ireland-600/
Sustainability
The Financial Conduct Authority in the UK has recently published a discussion paper on finance for positive sustainable change: governance, incentives and competence in regulated firms. The paper does not make any concrete proposals in terms of new regulatory rules, but it seeks views on how firms should develop their arrangements for governance, incentives and competence in sustainability. The FCA has requested responses to the paper by 10 May 2023.
The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment is holding a series of free events for businesses which will highlight the opportunities and challenges presented by digital transformation and decarbonisation. The first event will be hosted in the North-West on Friday 3rd March and is open for businesses based in Donegal, Leitrim and Sligo. You can read more and register here.
Small businesses and entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to sample hundreds of events helping them to start or grow their business as part of this year’s Local Enterprise Week which takes place from March 6th to 10th. Click here to read more about it and here for more details of the events including spotlight events for example one on Green, Sustainability & Competitiveness on Thursday 9th March from 2.30pm to 3.30pm.
Insolvency
The Institute recently hosted a webinar on Options for directors in financial difficulty. It outlined directors’ duties and obligations when a business is in financial difficulty, and possible consequences for directors for not adhering to those duties and obligations. There was also discussion on the recent insolvency related changes to Companies Act 2014 on the expansion of directors’ duties and a Q&A session. The recording can be accessed here.
Sanctions/cybercrime
The UK government recently sanctioned seven people said to be part of a Russia-based cybercrime gang under the UK’s thematic cyber sanctions regime pursuant to The Cyber (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020. In conjunction OFSI also published Guidance on Ransomware and Financial Sanctions and you can read the UK Government press release here .
The European Union this week announced that it is considering its 10th package of sanctions against Russia. Click here to read the press release on the proposed 10th package. They propose to further restrict the export of dual use and advanced tech goods and to add third country entities to the Russia dual use sanctions. They will also look at setting up an overview of all frozen assets of the Russian central bank held in the EU and will look to tackle circumvention of sanctions. We will bring further news of the sanctions when available.
The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) and CERT-EU, which is the Computer Emergency Response Team of all the EU institutions, bodies and agencies (EUIBAs), have issued a joint publication to alert on sustained activity by particular threat actors which they say pose a significant and ongoing threat to the European Union. Click here to go to the ENISA webpage where you can access a copy of the publication and the recommendations in it.
Other Areas of Interest
The FRC has announced an increase in the number of signatories to the UK Stewardship Code following the publication of its updated list. The list now includes successful applicants who submitted their reports at the end of October 2022. The regulator received 105 applications, of which 88 were successful, taking the total number of signatories to 254, up from 235 in September last year. This includes 179 asset managers, 58 asset owners and 17 service providers. The additional signatories bring the total assets under management of the list to £46.4tn, up from £40.7tn.
The European Central Bank recently issued its ECB February 2023 Supervision newsletter where there a number of topics readers may find of interest including a piece from the Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland on whether banks are overregulated, an article on crypto-assets: a new standard for banks and an article on banks’ digital transformation.
Section 225 of the Companies Act 2014 introduced a requirement for a directors’ compliance statement (DCS) into Irish law. Now that the DCS has been operational for several years, the Company Law Review Group (CLRG) is reviewing it to determine its effectiveness in achieving compliance and its usability and, if appropriate, to make recommendations as to how these might be enhanced in the interest of good corporate governance. Readers may know that the CLRG is a statutory advisory expert body charged with advising the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment on the review and development of company law in Ireland. The CLRG has issued two surveys, a directors’ survey and a practitioners’ survey, to get feedback from directors of affected companies and practitioners (auditors, financial directors, solicitors, and so on) who are involved in the preparation of the annual DCS. Please see here for more information from DETE on the review .
Please access the directors’ survey here.
Please access the practitioners’ survey here. The closing date is 28 February 2023.
DETE's February 2023 Enterprise newsletter is now available. It contains information on the survey referred to in the preceding paragraph and a number of consultations which DETE is currently involved in including the consultation on which we brought you details in the last few weeks seeking the views of interested parties on the member state options in the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. As a reminder of the details you can click here for a recent Institute news item with some more information on the Directive.
The Irish Minister for Justice this week obtained approval from Government to close the Immigrant Investor Programme (IIP) to further applications from close of business on 15 February 2023. He said that all programmes are kept under review and the Government has also taken on board a number of reports and findings from international bodies such as the EU Commission, Council of Europe and OECD on similar investment programmes. You can read more in the press release from the Dept of Justice website.
For further technical information and updates please visit the Technical Hub on the Institute website.
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