Friday Footnotes: More AMA with Halliburton Whistleblower; Disrupting Lease Accounting; Nice Dadbod | 05.01.15

Posted on by Caleb Newquist

Have a great weekend, capital market servants. I'll be on vacation for most of next week but you'll still get content from the likes of Greg, Leona and others. Send tips and stuff we should know to our inbox, follow us on Twitter, Facebook and remember that Open Items is like 7-11.

Reddit Recap: A Q & A With A Halliburton Whistleblower Tony Menendez will be back on Reddit tomorrow to continue his AMA. [ProPublica]

The lease accounting industry desperately needs disruption [AT]

FASB Plans Next Phase of Big Accounting Changes [CW]

SEC’s Pot Calling the Kettle Black? [CFO]

Dadbod: A New Word for a Timeless Physique [Atlantic]

Everything You Need to Know About Tesla's New Household Batteries [Gizmodo]

MillerCoors Sued for Claiming Blue Moon Is a Craft Beer [Eater]

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This EU Guy Really Doesn’t Like the IASB’s New Magical Fair Value Plan

In case you thought the fair value debate was limited to the U.S. circa 2008, think again. A rule you probably haven’t heard of (but will likely see a version of once government debt becomes as much of a pain in the ass here as it has been in Europe) called IFRS 9 (which replaces IAS 39) would allow banks to price some government debt on their books at cost, instead of current awful prices.

Apparently the European Union doesn’t like this idea. EU Internal Market Commissioner Michel Barnier told a webcast meeting in New York this week “I do not believe this will be the first solution to the problems we face in Europe at the moment,” referring to IFRS 9‘s creative interpretation of “fair value.” Ironically, IFRS 9 accomplishes this feat by eliminating available for sale and held-to-maturity classifications for bonds, leaving only amortized cost and fair value.

IASB Chairman Hans Hoogervorst insists this plan is really only the suck less option, not some sort of magical accounting trick that will suddenly make Greece solvent and Irish banks healthy. “Under IFRS 9 impairments will still be painful but I am convinced it would be more timely done because the cliff effect is much less severe,” he said at a recent joint meeting of the IASB’s trustees and monitoring board of public officials, including Michel Barnier.

EU’s Barnier says won’t budge on accounting rule [Reuters]