5 Changes to accounting criteria

The 2013 financial year saw the entry into force of the provisions of IAS 19, “Employee Benefits”, approved by the European Commission with Regulation (EU) No. 475/2012 of 5 June 2012. The new provisions stipulate, inter alia: (i) the obligation to recognise actuarial gains and losses in the statement of comprehensive income, removing the possibility of adopting the “corridor method”. Actuarial gains and losses recognised in the statement of comprehensive income are not subsequently reported on the income statement; (ii) the representation of the expected return on plan assets and the interest cost in a single aggregate known as “net interest”, calculated by applying the discount rate to net defined-benefit liabilities; and (iii) the obligation to recognise on the income statement the effects arising from changes to plan arrangements (“past service costs”) fully in the year in which such changes were made. These new IAS 19 measures, to be applied retrospectively as if the changes had always been in place, resulted in the restatement of the balance sheet items as at 1 January 2012 and 31 December 2012 and on the 2012 statement of comprehensive income.

In relation to the Snam Group’s existing defined-benefit plans (severance pay, or TFR, and the supplementary healthcare provision for Company executives of Eni, or FISDE), the restatement of these balances was as follows: (i) as at 1 January 2012, an increase of €2 million in employee benefit liabilities and a reduction of €1 million in shareholders’ equity, net of tax effect; and (ii) as at 31 December 2012, an increase of €21 million in employee benefit liabilities and a reduction of €14 million in shareholders’ equity, net of tax effect.

The effects of these changes mainly apply to the recognition of unrecognised actuarial gains and losses, which are recorded in other components of comprehensive income.