Members of Dafferns corporate reporting team (Andy Bewick, Lucy Hatton, Paige Howitt and Jack Wright) visited the AGN IFRS Seminar in Lisbon, Portugal on 29 September 2017. A record number of 83 delegates from 13 countries all over Europe, USA and even Guatemala, were in attendance.
The event started on the evening before, where all delegates were invited to a local Lisbon restaurant for a traditional Portuguese dinner. The ‘meat on sticks’ carved at the table, was a particular highlight. Although sadly many had to pass on the chicken hearts, banana croquettes and cinnamon pineapple (ok, it wasn’t all meat).
The social setting gave the individuals an excellent way to get to know each other, to network and become better connected.
On the day of the seminar we received a warm welcome to Portugal from Alfonso Diz and received an AGN update from Chairman Liam McQuaid, before taking us into technical sessions.
Scott Walters from Daszkal Bolton (member firm in Florida, USA) presented key changes in the US GAAP world. Having several clients that are part of larger groups that ultimately report under US GAAP, it was interesting to hear current hot topics surrounding debt restructuring and new accounting standards being issued relating to revenue recognition, leasing and financial instruments.
Andreas Weinberger from WirtschaftsTreuhand-Group (member firm in Germany) presented on accounting for provisions. In a thoroughly enjoyable session which followed the corporate reporting surrounding Volkswagen and their disclosure of provisions over recent years, Andreas kept the group on their toes with 6 interactive case studies for discussion.
Other technical sessions included a presentation relating to recent cases from ESMA relating to corporate reporting errors and their findings, and technical sessions on intangible assets and plant, property and equipment. The intangible asset session concluded with a case study on how to value intangible assets, which was colourfully illustrated using characters from the Russian version of Winnie-the-Pooh! Who knew that Winnie had a different appearance in other countries?!
Overall this was an excellent AGN event where the building of new and established relationships were as of equal value and importance to the technical content itself.
For any International related questions please email Andy Bewick.
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