Regulatory Assets and Regulatory Liabilities

This page provides information on the UKEB project to monitor the IASB’s redeliberations of the responses to Exposure Draft ED/2021/1 Regulatory Assets and Regulatory Liabilities.

Background

The IASB published the Exposure Draft ED/2021/1 Regulatory Assets and Regulatory Liabilities in January 2021. The IASB’s comment deadline was 30 July 2021. The ED sets out the IASB’s proposals for a model to account for regulatory assets and regulatory liabilities.

The UKEB responded to this ED here.

The UKEB project page can be found here.

In December 2021, the IASB published its plan for redeliberations of the Exposure Draft.

Details of these discussions and further information on the project history can be found here.

Timeline 

At the September 2023 Accounting Standards Advisory Forum, the IASB project team presented an update on the project. In this update it stated that the standard is expected to be issued in H2 of 2025.

Rate Regulated Activities Economic Study

During 2023, the UKEB commissioned an independent economic assessment of the IASB Exposure Draft 2021/1 Regulatory Assets and Regulatory Liabilities and subsequent accounting re-deliberations (up to December 2023).

In the report, First Economics concluded that the IASB’s accounting proposals in the ED, as amended by tentative decisions up to December 2023, are not expected to lead to any major macroeconomic effects in the UK. Overall, they are expected to lead to some improvement in financial reporting for companies within scope. However, in certain circumstances the proposals may not lead to an improvement in UK companies’ financial reporting, due to: the non-recognition of regulatory assets/liabilities in the absence of a direct relationship between an entity’s property, plant and equipment and its regulatory capital base; the treatment of inflation indexation; and the treatment of deferred tax. As a result:

• generalist investors may not benefit from the intended improvements in accounting for companies undertaking rate regulated activities;
• comparability between companies and jurisdictions may be impaired; and
• any anticipated cost of capital reductions may be smaller than if the proposed accounting fully reflected the underlying economics.

This preliminary assessment is subject to change as the IASB deliberates on additional topics in anticipation of a standard being published in 2025.

The final report can be accessed below.

Rate Regulated Activities Advisory Group (RRA AG)

Click here to access more information about the RRA TAG.

UKEB’s planned outreach

More detailed information on outreach activities will be published in due course. If you would like to contribute to outreach work on this project, please email UKEndorsementBoard@endorsement-board.uk.

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