Beyond the GAAP - April 2020

As the COVID-19 epidemic continues to disrupt business, with significant impacts expected on 2020 financial statements, various stakeholders (most especially standard-setters) are working hard to respond to this unprecedented crisis (cf. issue no. 2 of our COVID-19 supplement).

While the IASB is currently focusing on managing this crisis, it has not abandoned its regular, non-COVID-19 related work, as shown by the two features in this issue’s ‘A Closer Look’ section.

In these features, we present the IASB’s proposals for improving disclosures following a business combination, and for simplifying impairment testing of goodwill. This issue also covers the proposed amendments to IFRS 9 and IAS 39 from Phase 2 of IBOR reform, which will specify the appropriate accounting treatment for changes to interest rate benchmarks as a result of the reform.