December 2020 Newsletter

December, 2020

XBRL US commented on SEC proposal on tailored shareholder reports. The SEC proposal, Tailored Shareholder Reports, Treatment of Annual Prospectus Updates for Existing Investors, and Improved Fee and Risk Disclosure for Mutual Funds and Exchange-Traded Funds; Fee Information in Investment Company Advertisements, recommends changes to modernize the disclosure framework for open-end management investment companies.

The XBRL US letter advocates the use of XBRL for tailored shareholder reports and for Form N-CSR as the data contained in these reports is likely to be extracted by third-party providers and used for retail investors in comparing fund performance and cost.

XBRL community expressed support for IFRS Foundation proposal to develop a Sustainability Standards Board (SSB), and encouraged creation of a single digital taxonomy to support ESG standards. XBRL International, on behalf of all 19 national jurisdictions, submitted a comment letter to the IFRS Foundation providing input to their Consultation Paper on Sustainability Reporting. The Foundation received 361 comment letters.

The XII letter supported the proposed creation of a Sustainability Standards Board (SSB) which was outlined in the consultation paper. The XII letter further focused on raising the importance of developing a single digital taxonomy to represent the standards; and to underscore the importance of integrating taxonomy development into the governance of standard setting work performed by the SSB.

The SEC adopted XBRL for payment disclosures made by resource extraction issuers. The final rule Disclosure of Payments by Resource Extraction Issuers, addresses information provided in an annual report related to payments made to a foreign government or the Federal Government for the purpose of the commercial development of oil, natural gas, or minerals. The final rule requires the use of XBRL, but not Inline XBRL, for payment information submitted with these disclosures which includes payment data such as total amounts of the payments, by payment type; the currency used to make the payments; the financial period in which the payments were made; the business segment of the resource extraction issuer that made the payments; the government that received the payments, and the country in which the government is located; the project of the resource extraction issuer to which the payments relate.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) requested feedback on 2021 strategic goals and priorities. The MSRB Notice, published on December 7, requests feedback to assess the long-term direction of the MSRB, and requests specific input on important trends and developments, an evaluation of the effectiveness of the MSRB and how to make improvements; and on modernization of the EMMA (Electronic Municipal Markets Authority) platform and other supporting technology systems. The XBRL US Standard Government Reporting Group (SGR) has been advocating for standards in state and local government reporting, and have seen greater movement towards the use of standards for such reporting, with the Florida implementation of XBRL, as well as pilot programs initiated in Illinois, and California. Comments to the request are due January 11.

A move to greater standardization of Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) data continues to gain traction among regulators. The SEC’s Asset Management Advisory ESG Subcommittee published potential recommendations that focus on the adoption of standards for ESG data, asking the SEC to require standards to be used by corporate issuers disclosing material ESG risks using standard setters ESG frameworks; and to require that ESG data be disclosed in the same manner as financial disclosures. Furthermore, the subcommittee recommended that the SEC align ESG investment product disclosures with recommendations made by the ICI ESG Working Group in their paper Funds’ Use of ESG Integration and Sustainable Investing Strategies: An Introduction, which was published in July 2020.

Separately, XBRL US held a webinar on December 15 (watch archived event) to showcase an XBRL taxonomy developed by the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) and PwC which includes metrics from all 77 SASB industries. The webinar, “Automating Sustainability Data with XBRL“, not only demonstrated the structure and content of the taxonomy, the 75-minute program showed how XBRL instance documents (XBRL reports) for corporate sustainability reports can be prepared, and consumed in analytical tools.

Webinar speakers included Anna Kwok, Vice President, Structured Data Initiatives, Workiva, Inc; Madhu Mathew, Director of Technology, Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB); Marco Masip, Head of ESG Investors and Non-Financial Reporting, Telefonica; Himani Phadke, Sustainable Investing Strategist, Wells Fargo Asset Management; Mike Slutsky, Risk Assurance Director, PwC; Susanne Stormer, Chief Sustainability Advisor, Vice President, Novo Nordisk; Christine Tan, co-Founder and Chief Research Officer, idaciti; and John Truzzolino, Director, Donnelley Financial Solutions (DFIN).

Recent Point of View Blog Posts

SEC Acknowledges (and uses) XBRL US DQC rules, by Ami Beers, CPA, Senior Director, Assurance and Advisory Innovation – Public Accounting, AICPA; and Joan Berg, Toppan Merrill, and Chair, XBRL US Data Quality Committee. Recent SEC and FASB actions confirm the importance and value of the DQC rules: 1)the SEC announcement encouraging issuers and investors to participate in a public review of DQC rules in a newly created FASB DQC Rules Taxonomy, 2) statements by SEC Commissioner Allison Herren Lee, commending the work of the DQC to develop tools enhancing data quality, and 3) the SEC announcement about scale errors that suggests SEC use of the DQC rules to identify issuer errors.

Thank You to Members by Campbell Pryde, President and CEO, XBRL US. Member activities in 2020 through working groups and committees have set the stage for important opportunities in 2021 including sustainability, increasing acknowledgement of the value of standards by governments, and enhanced specifications making XBRL easier to use.

Recent XBRL US Webinars & Meetings

Webinar: Data Quality Rulesets 13 & 14

Watch this free, 50-minute webinar for a review of the 13th approved ruleset and the 14th proposed ruleset published by the XBRL US Data Quality Committee (DQC). Ruleset 14 contains six new rules for IFRS filers; ruleset 13 contains three rules for US GAAP filers.

Speakers:

• Joan Berg, Director of XBRL Services at Toppan Merrill, and Chair, XBRL US Data Quality Committee
• Campbell Pryde, President and CEO, XBRL US

Replay: https://xbrl.us/events/20201203/

Upcoming XBRL US Steering Committee and Other Member Meetings

The next Data Quality Committee meeting will be held Wednesday, January 20, at Noon ET https://xbrl.us/events/dqc-210120/. Get information about the Data Quality Committee as well as past and upcoming meetings: https://xbrl.us/dqc

• The Domain Steering Committee will meet Thursday, January 7, at 3PM ET. https://xbrl.us/events/dsc-210107
• The Communications Steering Committee will meet Tuesday, February 16, at 3 PM ET. https://xbrl.us/events/csc-210119
• The Regulatory Modernization Working Group will meet Tuesday, January 12, at 3 PM ET. (membership@xbrl.us for details)
• A joint meeting of the DSC, CSC, and DQC will meet on January 20 at 1 PM ET, and will cover a review of the taxonomy to support Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) standards. (membership@xbrl.us for details)

XBRL US Members are encouraged to attend and get involved.

XBRL US Members are committed to engaging and collaborating with other members, contributing to the standard through involvement of their teams, and striving to build awareness and educate the market. Members of XBRL US represent the full range of the business reporting supply chain.

Not yet an XBRL US member? Maybe it’s time to consider joining XBRL US for yourself ($55 – $500/ year) or your organization (fees vary). Find out more about the benefits of membership and how to become involved by visiting
https://xbrl.us/benefits.