Technical Roundup 2 July

Welcome to this week’s Technical Roundup.  

In developments this week, The Institute have issued Technical Alert (TA 02/2021) Guidance on the revised Ethical Standard for Auditors (Ireland) 2020 to highlight to members the key new requirements of the Ethical Standard applicable in Ireland from 15 July; One of the biggest factors influencing the public's trust and confidence in charities is that the organisation does what it says it will.  According to new research from the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland, 87% of respondents marked 'doing what they say they will do' as a major factor that influences their trust in a charity.

Read more on these and other developments that may be of interest to members below.

Audit

Revised Ethical Standard for Auditors

The Institute have issued Technical Alert (TA 02/2021) Guidance on the revised Ethical Standard for Auditors (Ireland) 2020 to highlight to members the key new requirements of the Ethical Standard applicable in Ireland from 15 July.

Sustainability

At a CFA In­sti­tute sym­posium this week, Erkki Liik­anen, Chair of the IFRS Found­a­tion Trust­ees, talked about the Found­a­tion’s work to meet the in­form­a­tion needs of in­vestors and other capital market par­ti­cipants re­gard­ing sus­tain­ab­il­ity-re­lated in­form­a­tion.

The Board of the In­ter­na­tional Or­gan­iz­a­tion of Se­cur­it­ies Com­mis­sions (IOSCO) has pub­lished a report on issuers’ sus­tain­ab­il­ity-re­lated dis­clos­ures that elab­or­ates on IOSCO's vision and ex­pect­a­tions for the IFRS Found­a­tion’s work towards a global baseline of in­vestor-fo­cused sus­tain­ab­il­ity stand­ards to improve the global con­sist­ency, com­par­ab­il­ity and re­li­ab­il­ity of sus­tain­ab­il­ity re­port­ing. In ad­di­tion, the manuscript of a speech by IOSCO Chair Ashley Alder on the 'crucial' IFRS global baseline has been made avail­able.

Global practices for sustainability assurance—including the prevalence of assurance, level of assurance, and standard and practitioner used—varies widely by jurisdiction, according to a new study from the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) and the AICPA & CIMA (representing the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants).

Financial Reporting

The IASB will be holding a webinar on 13 July 2021 to provide an over­view of Ex­pos­ure Draft (ED) ‘Man­age­ment Com­ment­ary’.

Fol­low­ing the IASB's June 2021 meeting, they have ana­lysed the IASB work plan to see what changes have res­ul­ted from the meet­ings and other de­vel­op­ments since it was last revised in May 2021. Three new main­ten­ance pro­jects have been added to the plan.

The IFRS Foundation held a webinar about the International Accounting Standards Board’s Exposure Draft Disclosure Requirements in IFRS Standards—A Pilot Approach. The webinar featured a question and answer session with Board Members Tadeu Cendon and Tom Scott, exploring in more detail the proposed new approach to developing disclosure requirements in IFRS Standards. This included discussion of the Board’s views on particular aspects of the proposed approach, such as the application of judgement, comparability, auditability and enforceability and digital reporting.

In this month’s IASB podcast, Hans Hoogervorst and Sue Lloyd, Chair and Vice-Chair of the International Accounting Standards Board (Board) respectively, talk about the Board’s discussions at the meeting held virtually from 22 and 23 June 2021. Topics discussed on the podcast include the addition of narrow-scope amendment projects related to the initial application of IFRS 17 Insurance Contracts and IFRS 9 Financial Instruments; IAS 1 Presentation of Financial Statements; and Supplier Finance Arrangements to the Board’s work plan.

On Tuesday 6 July 2021, EFRAG will hold a webinar, in which the speakers will express their views on the issues related to accounting for crypto-assets (liabilities) under IFRS standards.

Other areas of interest

One of the biggest factors influencing the public's trust and confidence in charities is that the organisation does what it says it will.  According to new research from the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland, 87% of respondents marked 'doing what they say they will do' as a major factor that influences their trust in a charity.

UK Corporate reporting review

In March, the UK Government published a consultation Restoring trust in audit and corporate governance, which contains a number of proposals for enhancing the regulation of corporate reporting. One proposal is to give the regulator a statutory power to publish a summary of its findings of its individual reviews of company reports and accounts.  As an interim step towards greater transparency of its corporate reporting review function, the FRC is publishing summaries of its findings of recently closed substantive reviews. https://www.frc.org.uk/accountants/corporate-reporting-review/crr-reviews-of-corporate-reporting/company-names-published-in-june-2021

For further technical information and updates please visit the Technical Hub and the Covid-19 Hub on the Institute website.