On December 1, 2017, the SEC's Division of Corporation Finance updated its Financial Reporting Manual for the following changes:

  • Revising guidance related to the pro forma impact of adopting new accounting standards (Sections 3250.1(m)-(n)), including clarifying that if a registrant:
    • acquires a significant business, and such business adopts a new accounting standard as of a different date and/or under a different transition method than the registrant, than the registrant must conform the date and method of adoption of the acquired business to its own date and method in its pro forma financial information; however, the guidance suggests that the SEC Staff will consider requests for relief from this requirement; and
    • retrospectively adopts a new accounting standard on January 1, 2018, makes a significant acquisition in September 2018, and later files a Form 8-K that includes pro forma financial information for the year ended December 31, 2017 and the six months ending June 30, 2018, than the registrant does not need to apply the new accounting policy to the pro forma information for periods prior to adoption until it has reflected the new standard in the historical financial statements for those periods; however, if the registrant believes the effect of the new standard on 2017 historical information will be material, it should make appropriate disclosure to that effect in the notes to the pro forma financial information.
  • Revising guidance to address the adoption of new or revised financial accounting standards after an EGC loses its EGC status (Section 10230.1), clarifying that:
    • EGCs that take advantage of an extended transition period provision are encouraged to review their plans to adopt accounting standards upon losing EGC status and to discuss with the SEC Staff any issues they foresee in being able to timely comply; and
    • generally, if an EGC loses its status after it would have had to adopt a standard absent the extended transition, the issuer should adopt the standard in its next filing after losing status, but depending on the facts and circumstances the SEC Staff may not object to other alternatives.
  • Clarifying the effective dates for ASU No. 2014-09 "Revenue from Contracts with Customers" and ASU No. 2016-02 "New Leasing Standard" for certain public business entities (Sections 11100 and 11200).

The updates to the Financial Reporting Manual are available here.

Because of the generality of this update, the information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations.

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