Appendix A (INT12_08-15_COMPmay19_01-20)

Paragraph 5 of this Interpretation specifies that infrastructure is within the scope of the Interpretation when the following conditions apply:

(a) the grantor controls or regulates what services the operator must provide with the infrastructure, to whom it must provide them, and at what price; and

(b) the grantor controls—through ownership, beneficial entitlement or otherwise—any significant residual interest in the infrastructure at the end of the term of the arrangement.

The control or regulation referred to in condition (a) could be by contract or otherwise (such as through a regulator), and includes circumstances in which the grantor buys all of the output as well as those in which some or all of the output is bought by other users. In applying this condition, the grantor and any related parties shall be considered together. If the grantor is a public sector entity, the public sector as a whole, together with any regulators acting in the public interest, shall be regarded as related to the grantor for the purposes of this Interpretation.

For the purpose of condition (a), the grantor does not need to have complete control of the price: it is sufficient for the price to be regulated by the grantor, contract or regulator, for example by a capping mechanism. However, the condition shall be applied to the substance of the agreement. Non-substantive features, such as a cap that will apply only in remote circumstances, shall be ignored. Conversely, if for example, a contract purports to give the operator freedom to set prices, but any excess profit is returned to the grantor, the operator’s return is capped and the price element of the control test is met.

For the purpose of condition (b), the grantor’s control over any significant residual interest should both restrict the operator’s practical ability to sell or pledge the infrastructure and give the grantor a continuing right of use throughout the period of the arrangement. The residual interest in the infrastructure is the estimated current value of the infrastructure as if it were already of the age and in the condition expected at the end of the period of the arrangement.

Control should be distinguished from management. If the grantor retains both the degree of control described in paragraph 5(a) and any significant residual interest in the infrastructure, the operator is only managing the infrastructure on the grantor’s behalf—even though, in many cases, it may have wide managerial discretion.

Conditions (a) and (b) together identify when the infrastructure, including any replacements required (see paragraph 21), is controlled by the grantor for the whole of its economic life. For example, if the operator has to replace part of an item of infrastructure during the period of the arrangement (eg the top layer of a road or the roof of a building), the item of infrastructure shall be considered as a whole. Thus condition (b) is met for the whole of the infrastructure, including the part that is replaced, if the grantor controls any significant residual interest in the final replacement of that part.

Sometimes the use of infrastructure is partly regulated in the manner described in paragraph 5(a) and partly unregulated. However, these arrangements take a variety of forms:

(a) any infrastructure that is physically separable and capable of being operated independently and meets the definition of a cash-generating unit as defined in AASB 136 shall be analysed separately if it is used wholly for unregulated purposes. For example, this might apply to a private wing of a hospital, where the remainder of the hospital is used by the grantor to treat public patients.

(b) when purely ancillary activities (such as a hospital shop) are unregulated, the control tests shall be applied as if those services did not exist, because in cases in which the grantor controls the services in the manner described in paragraph 5, the existence of ancillary activities does not detract from the grantor’s control of the infrastructure.

The operator may have a right to use the separable infrastructure described in paragraph AG7(a), or the facilities used to provide ancillary unregulated services described in paragraph AG7(b). In either case, there may in substance be a lease from the grantor to the operator; if so, it shall be accounted for in accordance with AASB 16.