The Financial Accounting Standards Board voted 6-1 against taking up a project on pension disclosure that could have led to requiring companies to disclose information about their expected pension contributions for the next five years. The move leaves in place the FASB's current requirement that companies must disclose how much they expect to contribute only over the next year.

Pension-contribution disclosure became an issue because the new pension-reform law enacted in August will generally require companies to fully fund their pension plans within seven years, which will increase many companies' pension contributions. Higher contributions would cut into a company's cash flow, giving it less money to do things like pay dividends or buy back stock.

But the board decided against requiring more disclosure because it believes the Securities and Exchange Commission essentially already provides for it. Current SEC pension-disclosure guidelines require companies to address the impact of future cash payments on their cash flow.

Leslie Seidman, a FASB member who was one of those voting not to add a pension-disclosure project, said in an interview that she felt the SEC guidelines "very adequately captured" the situation created by the new law. She said she hopes they will prompt companies to "robustly" disclose any impact of the higher pension contributions they must make down the line because of the new pension-funding requirements.