Last week, at the SEC’s Investor Advisory Committee meeting, the Committee discussed two topics described as “pain points” for investors: tracing in §11 litigation and shareholder proposals. In the discussion of §11 and...more
The SEC has announced settled charges against Zymergen, which, prior to its recent bankruptcy and ultimate liquidation, was a biotech “focused on the manufacture of novel materials, including optical films used in electronic...more
Yesterday, the SEC held an open meeting to consider a number of PCAOB proposals addressing the “general responsibilities of an auditor conducting an audit as well as technology-assisted analysis and contributory liability...more
Nasdaq is proposing to codify the standards of review that govern appeals and reviews before the Nasdaq Listing and Hearing Review Council, referred to as the Listing Council. When a listed company receives a Staff Delisting...more
Is it ok for an agency to change its mind? Well that depends. If the agency was “arbitrary and capricious” in failing to provide an adequate explanation to justify its change, a court may well vacate that about-face. At...more
Recently, the Council of the Corporation Law Section of the Delaware State Bar Association proposed some amendments to the Delaware General Corporation Law, as they do with some regularity. (See this Alert from the Delaware...more
It’s almost as if someone put a hex on electric vehicle manufacturers that went public through de-SPACs. In 2022, SEC Enforcement charged Nikola Corporation, an aspiring manufacturer of low- or zero-emission semi-trucks,...more
A Federal District Court has just held invalid the SEC’s rule regarding proxy advisory firms. The case dates back to 2019(!), when ISS sued the SEC and then-SEC Chair Jay Clayton in connection with the SEC’s interpretive...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
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
The SEC’s Office of Chief Accountant appears to be taking a hard look these days at statements of cash flows. In “The Statement of Cash Flows: Improving the Quality of Cash Flow Information Provided to Investors,” SEC Chief...more
In remarks on Monday to the National Press Club, SEC Chair Gary Gensler, after first displaying his math chops—can you decipher “the math is nonlinear and hyper-dimensional, from thousands to potentially billions of...more
In this new statement, SEC Chief Accountant Paul Munter—no longer “acting” Chief, he got the job—discusses some of the issues arising out of the increased use by lead auditors of other accounting firms and individual...more
The public/private company dichotomy has been a perennial discussion topic. A statistic frequently tossed around is that there are about half as many public companies today as there were in 1996, and those that are around...more
At the Northwestern/Pritzker 50th Annual Securities Regulation Institute in San Diego this week, SEC Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw gave the Alan B. Levenson Keynote Address. Her topic: exempt offerings and the private...more
Yesterday, the SEC announced that it had settled charges against AT&T for alleged violations of Reg FD for $6.25 million, an amount that it characterized as a “record penalty”—the “largest ever in a Reg FD case.” The case...more
According to this report by The Conference Board, in collaboration with Semler Brossy and ESGAUGE, the vast majority (73% in 2021) of companies in the S&P 500 are “now tying executive compensation to some form of ESG...more
Last month, the FASB issued a proposed ASU on segment reporting. In its announcement, the FASB explained that investors find segment information to be critically important to understanding a company’s different business...more
Here’s an unexpected pair: Jon Stewart interviewing SEC Chair Gary Gensler on his podcast, The Problem with Jon Stewart. In many ways, the interview was remarkably financially sophisticated, with acronyms like “PFOF” tossed...more
It may look like just another run-of-the-mill insider trading case, but there’s one difference in this settled SEC Enforcement action: according to the SEC, it involved sales under a purported 10b5-1 trading plan while in...more
[This post revises and updates my earlier post primarily to reflect the contents of the proposing release.] At an open meeting last week, the SEC voted, three to two, to adopt new amendments to the rules regarding proxy...more
Last week, at a meeting of the SEC’s Investor Advisory Committee, the Committee heard from experts on two topics: accounting for non-traditional financial information and climate disclosure. Interestingly, two of the speakers...more
In this paper, BlackRock Investment Stewardship provides a preview of its perspective on climate-related shareholder proposals up for votes during the current proxy season. In 2021, BIS “supported 47% of environmental and...more
Yesterday, without first holding an open meeting, the SEC posted proposals related to changes in beneficial ownership reporting and changes to the whistleblower program. In the press release announcing the changes in...more