The Accounting Standards Board (ASB) has today published an amended FRS 2 ‘Accounting for Subsidiary Undertakings’; and amendments to FRS 6 ‘Acquisitions and Mergers’ and FRS 28 ‘Corresponding Amounts’. The amendments updates the references in these Financial Reporting Standards to refer to the ‘Companies Act 2006’ and the ‘The Large and Medium-sized Companies and Reports) Regulations 2008.

The FRS does not amend existing requirements of these FRSs but updates them such that the references contained in the FRSs correspond with current legal requirements.

The ASB issued a Financial Reporting Exposure Draft proposing the amendments in December 2008. Constituents in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland were broadly supportive of the proposal to update these FRS.

The amendments take effect for accounting periods beginning on or after 6 April 2008 or when the provisions of the Act/and or the Regulations are applied to other entities (eg limited liability partnerships), if later.

1. The ASB is an operating body of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), the UK’s independent regulator responsible for promoting confidence in corporate reporting and governance. Its functions are exercised principally by its operating bodies (the Accounting Standards Board, the Auditing Practices Board, the Board for Actuarial Standards, the Financial Reporting Review Panel, the Professional Oversight Board and the Accountancy and Actuarial Discipline Board) and by the FRC Board. The Committee on Corporate Governance assists the Board in its work on corporate governance.
2. The main role of the ASB is to contribute to the establishment and improvement of standards for financial reporting. The ASB collaborates with accounting standard-setters from other countries and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) both in order to influence the development of international standards and in order to ensure that its standards are developed with due regard to international developments.
3. The ASB has eleven Board members, of whom two (the Chairman and the Technical Director) are full-time, and the remainder, who represent a variety of backgrounds, are part-time.
4. The Amendments can be downloaded, free of charge, from the FRC website at www.frc.org.uk/asb. Hard copies of the Amendments to the FRSs can be obtained at a cost of £6.00, post-free, from FRC Publications, 145 London Road, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey KT2 6SR (020 8247 1264). Web: www.frcpublications.com. Press enquiries should be addressed to Ian Mackintosh (Chairman) on 020 7492 2434, David Loweth (Technical Director) on 020 7492 2420 or Michelle Crisp (Project Director) 020 7492 2432.