19 January 2016

EFRAG’s response to the 2015 IASB Agenda Consultation

The IASB published its Request for Views (RfV) 2015 Agenda Consultation in August 2015 with a comment deadline of 31 December 2015 to gather views on the strategic direction and balance of its work plan and whether three years is the appropriate period between future Agenda Consultations.

EFRAG’s main observations are:

• The main priority is the finalisation of  the Insurance Contracts Project, the revision of the Conceptual Framework and advancing on the Disclosure Initiative and the Dynamic Risk Management (Macro-hedging) Projects;
• EFRAG welcomes the evidence based standard setting approach but believes that the IASB should better explain how priorities are assigned and what objectives are pursued in each Research project. A categorisation of these projects would be helpful;
• Beyond the Disclosure Initiative and Dynamic Risk Management  (Macro-hedging), EFRAG believes that the following five Research projects should have high priority: Financial Instruments with Characteristics of Equity; Discount Rates; Equity Method; Primary Financial Statements; and Goodwill and Impairment;
• EFRAG underlines the importance of Post-implementation Reviews in helping identify what works and what is in need for improvement in current practice. The use of Reviews should be extended beyond recently issued Standards; 
• EFRAG believes that the IASB in its Research activities should leverage on the substantial work of EFRAG and other regional and national accounting standards setters;
• EFRAG supports IASB’s maintenance activities but believes the IASB  needs to strike an appropriate balance with the need for stability for both preparers and users.

Full press release

Full comment letter

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