Notes to the Company financial statements
1. Adoption of new accounting standards
New financial reporting standards (FRS) and abstracts adopted in 2008/09
During the year the Company has adopted the following amendments to FRSs. None of these had a material impact on the Company’s results or assets and liabilities.
| Amendments to FRS 26 and FRS 29 on reclassification of financial assets | Permits reclassification of financial assets in certain circumstances. |
New FRSs not yet adopted
The Company has yet to adopt the following FRSs, however, they are not expected to have a material impact on the Company’s results or assets and liabilities.
| Amendment to FRS 20 on share-based payments | Clarifies the definition of vesting conditions and the accounting treatment of cancellations. Vesting conditions are defined as either service conditions or performance conditions. Cancellations by employees are accounted for in the same way as cancellations by the Company. The amendment to FRS 20 has been adopted with effect from 1 April 2009. |
| Amendments to FRS 25 on puttable financial instruments and obligations arising on liquidation | Addresses the classification as a liability or as equity of certain puttable financial instruments and instruments, or components thereof, which impose upon an entity an obligation to deliver a pro rata share of net assets on liquidation. The amendments to FRS 25 will be adopted on 1 April 2010. |
| Amendment to FRS 26 Financial Instruments: Recognition and measurement on eligible hedged items | Prohibits designating inflation as a hedgeable component of an instrument, unless cash flows relating to the separate inflation component are contractual and also prohibits the designation of a purchased option in its entirety as the hedge of a one-sided risk in a forecast transaction. The amendment to FRS 26 will be adopted on 1 April 2010. |
| Amendment to FRS 8 on related party disclosures | Changes the definition of related party to be the same as that in law and provides an exemption only in respect of wholly-owned subsidiaries, rather than 90% subsidiaries as previously permitted. The amendment to FRS 8 will be adopted on 1 April 2010. |
| Improvements to FRS 2008 | Contains amendments to various existing standards. The amendments are effective, in most cases, from 1 January 2009, or otherwise for annual periods beginning on or after 1 July 2009. |
| UITF 46 on hedges of a net investment in a foreign operation | Clarifies that hedged risk may be designated at any level in a group and hedging instruments may be held by any company in a group (except the foreign entity being hedged), that net investment hedge accounting may not be adopted in respect of a presentation currency and that on disposal the amounts to be reclassified from equity to profit or loss are any cumulative gain or loss on the hedging instrument and the cumulative translation difference on the foreign operation disposed of. UITF 46 has been adopted by the Company with effect from 1 April 2009. |