(paragraph 59)

BC224 Many leases contain more complex features, which can include variable payments, termination and extension options and residual value guarantees. These features of a lease are often determined on the basis of the individual circumstances of the parties to the contract and, in some cases, are particularly complex or are unique to the particular contract. The feedback received from stakeholders demonstrated that, for these features of a lessee’s lease portfolio, a standard disclosure requirement for all entities is unlikely to meet the needs of users of financial statements.

BC225 With respect to these more complex features, IFRS 16 requires a lessee to disclose any material entity-specific information that is necessary in order to meet the disclosure objective and is not covered elsewhere in the financial statements. IFRS 16 supplements this requirement with a list of user information needs that any additional disclosures should address, and with illustrative examples of disclosures that a lessee might provide in complying with the additional disclosure requirements. The IASB noted that these examples are not exhaustive. Nonetheless, the IASB thinks that the illustrative examples are useful in demonstrating that judgement should be applied in determining the most useful and relevant disclosures, which will depend on a lessee’s individual circumstances. In the IASB’s view, this approach facilitates the provision of more relevant and useful disclosures by (a) discouraging the use of generic or ‘boilerplate’ statements; and (b) enabling a lessee to apply judgement to identify the information that is relevant to users of financial statements and focus its efforts on providing that information.