The director of Corp Fin, Erik Gerding, and the SEC Chief Accountant, Paul Munter, have issued a new “Statement on the Application of IFRS 19, Subsidiaries without Public Accountability: Disclosures, in Filings with the SEC.”...more
Here is a great article—no surprise considering its author, Columbia Law Professor John Coffee—that practically gives the last rites to the “shadow trading” theory recently accepted by a federal district court and a jury in...more
In this statement, SEC Chief Accountant Paul Munter discusses the importance of setting the tone at the top. According to Munter, “academic research has ‘long stressed the crucial role that tone at the top, set by...more
In August 2021, the SEC approved a Nasdaq proposal for new listing rules regarding board diversity and disclosure, accompanied by a proposal to provide free access to a board recruiting service. The new listing rules adopted...more
Not so long ago, zeal for corporate action on ESG was skyrocketing. Now? Not so much. What happened? Many have attributed the decline in appetite for ESG to the politicization of ESG and particularly to ESG backlash. This...more
According to Bloomberg, there’s now a bipartisan push to re-propose the SEC’s stock buyback rule. As you may remember, the SEC’s Share Repurchase Disclosure Modernization rule, adopted in 2023, required quarterly reporting of...more
In 2023, as a corollary to revised listing standards related to notification and disclosure of reverse stock splits, Nasdaq adopted a rule change providing for a new regulatory halt procedure specific to the pre-market...more
Is there a hotter topic in the business world than AI? AI offers major opportunities for progress and productivity gains, but substantial risks as well. According to FactSet, 179 companies in the S&P 500 used the term “AI”...more
On Friday, SEC Enforcement charged audit firm BF Borgers CPA PC and its owner, Benjamin F. Borgers, with “massive fraud” involving “deliberate and systemic failures” to comply with PCAOB standards in auditing and reviewing...more
In Seven Questions About Proxy Advisors, from the Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford, the authors, David Larcker and Brian Tayan, examine the proxy advisory firm industry—all two of them. Well, actually, as the...more
You probably remember the saga about the SEC’s rules regarding proxy advisory firms? Back in 2019, the SEC issued interpretive guidance that proxy advisory firms’ vote recommendations were, in the view of the SEC,...more
The NYSE has filed a proposed rule change with the SEC that would allow the NYSE to commence immediate suspension and delisting procedures for a listed company if that company has “changed its primary business focus to a new...more
In an article in the Fordham Journal of Corporate and Financial Law, “Minutes Are Worth the Minutes: Good Documentation Practices Improve Board Deliberations and Reduce Regulatory and Litigation Risk,” former Chief Justice of...more
You remember the 2020 SolarWinds hack, perhaps one of the worst cyberattacks in history? As described by NPR in 2021, the hack was “believed to be directed by the Russian intelligence service, the SVR,” which used a “routine...more
The Center for Audit Quality has released its 2024 “Audit Committee Practices Report: Common Threads Across Audit Committees.” The report highlights the top five audit committee priorities identified by committee members in...more
As you probably remember, the SEC’s climate disclosure rules were challenged not only by those contending that the rules went too far and that the SEC had no authority—think, for example, Liberty Energy, the State of Iowa and...more
In In re Match Group, Inc. Derivative Litigation, the Delaware Supreme Court answered some important questions about the standard of review applicable to conflicted transactions under Delaware law. The first question relates...more
Yesterday, the House Financial Services Committee held a hearing entitled “Beyond Scope: How the SEC’s Climate Rule Threatens American Markets.” Since, as one of the committee members observed, this is their sixth hearing on...more
For those doing SPACs, you may want to take note of this recent proposed rule change from the NYSE. The proposal would amend Section 102.06 of the Listed Company Manual to allow a SPAC to “remain listed until forty-two months...more
At the Corp Fin Workshop last week, a segment of PLI’s SEC Speaks 2024, the panel focused on disclosure review, a task that occupies 70% of Corp Fin attorneys and accountants. The panel discussed several key topics, looking...more
The trial took eight days. The jury took two hours. On Friday, in the case of SEC v. Panuwat, the jury in a federal district court in California determined that Matthew Panuwat was civilly liable for insider trading under the...more
The SEC has determined, in this Order posted today, to exercise its discretion to stay the final climate disclosure rules “pending the completion of judicial review of the consolidated Eighth Circuit petitions.” If you have...more
In remarks at PLI’s SEC Speaks, SEC Commissioner Mark Uyeda expressed his concern that the SEC “has gone astray”: instead of focusing on “its narrow mission,” Uyeda fears, the SEC is acceding to the pressure of political...more
In her remarks yesterday at PLI’s SEC Speaks—after a detour to excoriate the SEC’s “maze of staff guidance” defining industry practices that has become effectively “mandatory” even in the absence of input from the full SEC...more
Since we’ve been preoccupied with the litigation over SEC’s climate disclosure rules, it’s time for a break. Something new and different. How about the litigation over the California climate disclosure rules: Senate Bill...more