IAS 36 Amendments - Impairment of Assets and IAS 38 Amendments - Intangible Assets: Business Combinations Phase I

The amendments to IAS 36 Impairment of Assets and IAS 38 Intangible Assets have been issued by the IASB, together with IFRS 3 Business Combinations, which is part of the first phase of a project which has the objective to improve the quality of accounting for business combinations, goodwill and intangible assets.

The IASB decided to issue amendments to IAS 36 and IAS 38 in order to reflect those changes related to its decisions in the Business Combinations project, and therefore the intention was not to reconsider all the existing requirements of IAS 36 and IAS 38.

Consequently, the changes made in IAS 36 are mainly concerned with the impairment testing of goodwill; the changes made in IAS 38 are concerned with clarifying the notion of "identifiability" with regards to intangible assets, and the accounting for in-process research and development projects acquired in a business combination.

 EFRAG published its final comment letter in April 2003 and endorsed the amendments in June 2004. The amendments were published in the Official Journal in December 2004.