Liabilities and equity instruments held

Liabilities and equity instruments held by other parties as assets

37 When a quoted price for the transfer of an identical or a similar liability or entity’s own equity instrument is not available and the identical item is held by another party as an asset, an entity shall measure the fair value of the liability or equity instrument from the perspective of a market participant that holds the identical item as an asset at the measurement date.

38 In such cases, an entity shall measure the fair value of the liability or equity instrument as follows:

(a) using the quoted price in an active market for the identical item held by another party as an asset, if that price is available.

(b) if that price is not available, using other observable inputs, such as the quoted price in a market that is not active for the identical item held by another party as an asset.

(c) if the observable prices in (a) and (b) are not available, using another valuation technique, such as:

(i) an income approach (eg a present value technique that takes into account the future cash flows that a market participant would expect to receive from holding the liability or equity instrument as an asset; see paragraphs B10 and B11).

(ii) a market approach (eg using quoted prices for similar liabilities or equity instruments held by other parties as assets; see paragraphs B5–B7).

39 An entity shall adjust the quoted price of a liability or an entity’s own equity instrument held by another party as an asset only if there are factors specific to the asset that are not applicable to the fair value measurement of the liability or equity instrument. An entity shall ensure that the price of the asset does not reflect the effect of a restriction preventing the sale of that asset. Some factors that may indicate that the quoted price of the asset should be adjusted include the following:

(a) The quoted price for the asset relates to a similar (but not identical) liability or equity instrument held by another party as an asset. For example, the liability or equity instrument may have a particular characteristic (eg the credit quality of the issuer) that is different from that reflected in the fair value of the similar liability or equity instrument held as an asset.

(b) The unit of account for the asset is not the same as for the liability or equity instrument. For example, for liabilities, in some cases the price for an asset reflects a combined price for a package comprising both the amounts due from the issuer and a third-party credit enhancement. If the unit of account for the liability is not for the combined package, the objective is to measure the fair value of the issuer’s liability, not the fair value of the combined package. Thus, in such cases, the entity would adjust the observed price for the asset to exclude the effect of the third-party credit enhancement.