New and Recently Adopted Accounting Standards

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2019

New Accounting Pronouncements And Changes In Accounting Principles [Abstract]

New and Recently Adopted Accounting Standards

2. New and Recently Adopted Accounting Standards

Recently Adopted Accounting Standards

Effective January 1, 2019, the Company adopted the Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”) Accounting Standards Update (“ASU”) 2016-02 (Topic 842): Leases, which requires the recognition of lease assets and lease liabilities by lessees for those leases classified as operating leases under previous guidance. The original guidance required application on a modified retrospective basis with the earliest period presented. In July 2018, the FASB issued ASU 2018-11, Targeted Improvements to ASC 842, which included an option to not restate comparative periods in transition and elect to use the effective date of ASC 842, Leases, as the date of initial application of transition, which we elected. As a result of the adoption of ASC 842 on January 1, 2019, we recorded operating lease liabilities of $228 million, with corresponding right of use (“ROU”) assets of the same amount. In addition, we elected the package of practical expedients permitted under the transition guidance within the new standard, which allowed us to carry forward the historical lease classification and not to reassess whether existing or expired contracts contain a lease. We also elected the short-term lease recognition exemption, which permits us to exclude short-term leases (i.e. leases with terms of 12 months or less) from the recognition requirements of this standard, and we elected to account for lease and non-lease components as a single lease component for all classes of underlying assets except for embedded leases. The adoption of ASC 842 had an immaterial impact on our consolidated net earnings, liquidity and debt covenants under our current agreements for the three-month period ended March 31, 2019. See Note 3, Leases, for more information.

Effective January 1, 2019, we adopted ASU 2018-02 (Topic 220): Income Statement—Reporting Comprehensive Income – Reclassification of Certain Tax Effects from Accumulated Other Comprehensive Income, which allows for optional reclassification from Accumulated Other Comprehensive Income (“AOCI”) to retained earnings for the stranded tax effects resulting from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in December 2017 (“Tax Act”). Stranded tax effects are the difference in deferred taxes between the amount initially recorded to other comprehensive income (“OCI”) at historical corporate income tax rates and the amount recorded using the newly-enacted corporate income tax rate. The cumulative tax rate adjustment to deferred taxes was required to be recorded through income tax expense from continuing operations in the period of enactment as opposed to OCI, resulting in the stranded tax effects in AOCI. The Company elected to not reclassify the stranded tax effects related to the Tax Act. As a result, the adoption did not have an impact on the Company's financial position, results of operations, or cash flow.  

New Accounting Standards Not Yet Adopted

In August 2018, the FASB issued ASU 2018-14, Compensation – Retirement Benefits – Defined Benefit Plans – General (Subtopic 715-20): Disclosure Framework – Changes to the Disclosure Requirements for Defined Benefit Plans. ASU 2018-14 removes certain disclosures that are not considered cost beneficial, clarifies certain required disclosures and adds additional disclosures. The ASU is effective for annual periods beginning after December 31, 2020, with early adoption permitted. The amendments in ASU 2018-14 would need to be applied on a retrospective basis.  The Company is currently evaluating the impact this guidance will have on its related disclosures.

In August 2018, the FASB issued ASU 2018-13, Fair Value Measurement (Topic 820): Disclosure Framework – Changes to the Disclosure Requirements for Fair Value Measurement.  ASU 2018-13 removes or modifies certain disclosure requirements and adds additional requirements to improve the usefulness of the fair value measurement disclosure for financial statement users. The ASU is effective for annual and interim periods beginning after December 15, 2019, with early adoption permitted. Certain amendments of ASU 2018-13 are required to be applied prospectively for the first interim period of the initial year of adoption. All other amendments need to be applied retrospectively. The Company is currently evaluating the impact of the new guidance.

There were no other accounting standards recently issued that had or are expected to have a material impact on our financial position or results of operations.