IFRS Foundation’s World Standard-setters Conference 2022: a summary

Delegates from national and regional accounting standard-setters around the world came together in person for the first time since 2019, to Canary Wharf, London, for the IFRS Foundation’s 2022 World Standard-setters Conference on 26-27 September.

It was also the first time that the Conference heard updates from both the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB).

More than 100 delegates from 60 organisations attended in person and online.
Below is a summary of the plenary sessions, which are available to watch here.

IASB update

Andreas Barckow, Chair of the IASB, and Nili Shah, IASB Executive Technical Director, gave an update on the IASB’s work in the past year and its 22 active projects.

They spoke in detail about:

• the outcomes of the Third Agenda Consultation, published in July;
• the status of the Management Commentary project;
• progress in projects including Business Combinations under Common Control, Goodwill and Impairment, Financial Instruments with Characteristics of Equity, Dynamic Risk Management and Lease Liability in Sale and Leaseback; and 
• the role and learning process around post-implementation reviews.

ISSB work

Emmanuel Faber, Chair of the ISSB, spoke for the first time at the conference about the ISSB’s work to develop a global baseline of sustainability disclosures.

He gave an update on the significant progress that has been made both at an institutional level and in the technical work.

All 14 ISSB members have been appointed, creating a highly qualified standard-setting board with a blend of professional expertise and from a range of geographies, enabling the board to consider decisions from multiple angles.

He highlighted the importance of working with national and regional standard-setters and how the ISSB is working with jurisdictions to ensure its Standards are interoperable with jurisdiction-specific requirements.

He said that the ISSB’s aim is to complete its discussions on the feedback to its consultation on the first two proposed IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards, with the view to issue the final Standards for adoption as early as possible in 2023.

IFRS for SMEs Accounting Standard consultation

Later on in the conference, the project team for the Second Comprehensive Review of the IFRS for SMEs Accounting Standard discussed the recently published consultation to update the Standard, including why it is being done and its scope. The deadline for comments is 7 March 2023.

The current consultation covers proposals to amend the IFRS for SMEs Accounting Standard to reflect improvements that have been made in IFRS Accounting Standards (in the scope of the second comprehensive review) while keeping the Standard simple.

They also discussed how this Standard interacted with another project in the IASB work plan: Subsidiaries without Public Accountability: Disclosures.

Primary Financial Statements

Day two began with a progress update and a deep-dive into the details of the Primary Financial Statements project.

This project proposes to improve how information is communicated in the financial statements, with a focus on information in the statement of profit or loss.

The details of each proposal were delved into. The main proposals are additional defined subtotals in the profit or loss statement, disclosures on Management Performance Measures and strengthening requirements for disaggregating information.

Outreach activities are also going to take place to see if the proposals will work in practice with stakeholders.

Feedback on the proposed IFRS Sustainability Disclosures Standards

The last plenary session of the conference was an overview of the feedback on the consultation on the first two IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards—one on climate-related disclosures and one on general sustainability-related disclosures.

The ISSB received more than 1,400 comment letters to its consultation and has undertaken more than 400 outreach meetings during the consultation period. The feedback to the consultation shows there is widespread interest in the ISSB’s work and broad support for its proposals.