FRC PROPOSES ENHANCEMENTS TO COMPANY REPORTING AND AUDIT TO DELIVER GREATER VALUE TO INVESTORS

The UK’s Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has published recommendations aimed at improving the dialogue between company boards and their shareholders. The FRC’s report, ‘Effective Company Stewardship: Enhancing Corporate Reporting and Audit’, contains seven key recommendations. According to their Press Release, it is seeking to respond to lessons of the financial crisis and building on changes already made, such as the new UK Corporate Governance Code and the introduction of the Stewardship Code for institutional investors.
The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) hasissued two narrow amendments to IFRS 1 First-time Adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs). The amendments confirm proposals that were published as separate exposure drafts for public comment in August and September.
The first amendment replaces references to a fixed transition date of ‘1 January 2004’ with ‘the date of transition to IFRSs’, thus eliminating the need for companies adopting IFRSs for the first time to restate derecognition transactions that occurred before the date of transition to IFRSs. The second amendment provides guidance on how an entity should resume presenting financial statements in accordance with IFRSs after a period when the entity was unable to comply with IFRSs because its functional currency was subject to severe hyperinflation.