On December 19, a Fifth Circuit panel pulled the plug on the SEC’s Share Repurchase Disclosure Modernization rule, issuing an opinion vacating the rule. On Friday last week, Corp Fin announced that, yes, the rule had been...more
SEC Chief Accountant Paul Munter has posted a new Statement. What’s on his mind? Apparently, he is disturbed that, in recent inspections of audits, the PCAOB has reported a “troubling” increase in deficiency rates—meaning...more
You remember that, in January, ExxonMobil filed a lawsuit against Arjuna Capital, LLC and Follow This, two proponents of a climate-related shareholder proposal submitted to Exxon, seeking a declaratory judgment that it may...more
Starting off the new year, consultant Semler Brossy’s latest report analyzes proxy results for 2023 among the S&P 500 and the Russell 3000, including votes on say on pay, environmental and social shareholder proposals,...more
You remember California’s climate legislation signed into law just last year—Senate Bill 253, the Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act, and Senate Bill 261, Greenhouse gases: climate-related financial risk? (See this...more
Ideagen AuditAnalytics has just released its 2024 Report on Critical Audit Matters, a 3-Year Review, covering the years 2020 to 2022. Under the auditing standard for the auditor’s report (AS 3101), adopted in 2017, CAMs are...more
Perfectly calibrated to slap an exclamation point on last Wednesday’s 581-page SPAC release (see this PubCo post), this new SEC Order, posted the following day, reflects settled charges against Northern Star Investment Corp....more
Back in 2014, a few companies, facing shareholder proposals from the prolific shareholder-proposal activist, John Chevedden, and his associates, adopted a “direct-to-court” strategy, bypassing the standard SEC no-action...more
Recently, SPACs seem to have lost much of their allure, but why? Certainly there are multiple reasons related to the capital markets, but one reason may have been the anxiety of many SPAC proponents precipitated by the...more
Last week, a House Financial Services subcommittee held a hearing with the ominous title “Oversight of the SEC’s Proposed Climate Disclosure Rule: A Future of Legal Hurdles.” Billed as oversight, the hearing certainly...more
Last year, the NYSE proposed to adopt new listing standards for the common equity securities of a “Natural Asset Company,” a new type of public company defined by the NYSE as “a corporation whose primary purpose is to...more
On Wednesday, SCOTUS heard oral argument—for over three and a half hours—in two very important cases, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v. Dept of Commerce, about whether the National Marine Fisheries...more
In this brand new report, The Conference Board looked at several of the less glitzy areas of board governance to identify some evolving best practices for attaining board excellence, such as board continuing education. From...more
As discussed in this article from the WSJ, The Latest Dirty Word in Corporate America: ESG, ESG backlash is driving many company executives to drop any reference to “ESG” and instead use terms like “sustainability” or...more
To start the new year, Corp Fin has posted an updated version of Disclosure Guidance: Topic No. 7, Confidential Treatment Applications Submitted Pursuant to Rules 406 and 24b-2. The guidance addresses procedures for CTRs that...more
In this new paper, Feet to the Fire: How Should Companies Tie Executive Compensation to Climate Targets?, from the Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford, the authors looked at how some companies bolstered their...more
As we begin this new year—a highly charged election year—it might be helpful to check out the Guide to Corporate Political Spending produced by the non-partisan Center for Political Accountability. The Guide, released last...more
Happy new year! In September last year, the SEC posted a new NYSE proposed rule change that would “modify the circumstances under which a listed company must obtain shareholder approval of a sale of securities to a...more
Back in September, we learned about a provision in the then-proposed Senate bill, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024, which would make insiders of foreign private issuers subject to Section 16 by...more
On October 31, the Fifth Circuit issued an opinion in Chamber of Commerce of the USA v. SEC, granting the Chamber’s petition for review of the SEC’s Share Repurchase Disclosure Modernization rule. The Court held that the “SEC...more
In August 2020, as part of an overhaul of Reg S-K, the SEC adopted a new requirement to discuss human capital, taking a principles-based approach. For the most part, the initial response to the new requirement was...more
On Friday, the SEC announced the issuance of a staff report on the accredited investor definition, a review that, as directed by Dodd-Frank, occurs every four years with the objective of assessing “whether the requirements of...more
A few days ago, Corp Fin issued three new CDIs relating to delays in reporting material cybersecurity incidents on Form 8-K. Those CDIs, together with the Department of Justice Material Cybersecurity Incident Delay...more
Corp Fin has just released some new CDIs, summarized below, relating to material cybersecurity incidents. As you know, in July, the SEC voted, three to two, to adopt final rules on cybersecurity disclosure, which includes a...more
The Center for Audit Quality, working with Ideagen Audit Analytics, has just released a new edition of its annual Audit Committee Transparency Barometer, which, over the past ten years, has measured the robustness of audit...more