It has been reported that the Securities & Exchange Commission has disbanded its Climate & ESG Task Force. This same task force had been launched with great fanfare in March 2021, at the beginning of the Biden...more
Yesterday, Judge Bough (W.D. Mo.) issued a decision barring the recent anti-ESG rules Missouri had promulgated that prohibited investment advisers from utilizing ESG factors when making investment decisions (absent written...more
8/16/2024
/ Asset Management ,
Bars ,
Broker-Dealer ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Environmental Social & Governance (ESG) ,
Fourteenth Amendment ,
Investment ,
Investment Adviser ,
NSMIA ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
SIFMA ,
Written Consent
On May 22, 2024, Judge O'Connor (N.D. Tex.) ordered that the plaintiffs claiming that investment managers breached their fiduciary duty due to their ESG-focused investing be certified as a class for purposes of the...more
5/28/2024
/ Breach of Duty ,
Class Certification ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Environmental Social & Governance (ESG) ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Fund Managers ,
Investment ,
Investment Management ,
Motion to Dismiss ,
Retirement Plan
On Monday, May 21, 2024, Congressman Nadler (D-NY) and Congressman Correa (D-CA), the ranking Democratic members on the House Judiciary Committee and relevant subcommittee, sent a letter to the Attorney General and Chief...more
Recently, a Texas federal court denied the defendants' motion to dismiss in a lawsuit featuring allegations that an employer's 401(k) plan, which allegedly relied on ESG principles when making investments, violated ERISA. ...more
3/22/2024
/ 401k ,
Asset Management ,
Breach of Contract ,
Breach of Duty ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Environmental Social & Governance (ESG) ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Investment ,
Motion to Dismiss ,
Texas
The Securities & Exchange Commission ("SEC") issued its long-awaited final rule concerning climate disclosures, entitled “The Enhancement and Standardization of Climate-Related Disclosures for Investors” (“Climate Disclosure...more
3/15/2024
/ Carbon Pricing ,
Climate Change ,
Disclosure Requirements ,
Final Rules ,
Governance Standards ,
Greenhouse Gas Emissions ,
Investment ,
Renewable Energy ,
Risk Assessment ,
Safe Harbors ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Severe Weather ,
Sustainability
Recently, a pair of bills were proposed in the New Hampshire state legislature that would make it a felony to knowingly invest state or taxpayer funds based upon ESG criteria in violation of fiduciary duty. Specifically, the...more
Recently, a pair of bills were proposed in the New Hampshire state legislature that would make it a felony to knowingly invest state or taxpayer funds based upon ESG criteria in violation of fiduciary duty. Specifically, the...more
On September 25, 2023, the SEC announced a settled administrative proceeding against a major investment advisor in which it agreed to pay a $19 million civil penalty for, effectively, greenwashing activities--i.e., pretending...more
On September 21, 2023, Judge Kacsmaryk (N.D. Texas), a famously conservative Trump-appointed jurist, upheld a Department of Labor rule promulgated by the Biden Administration that enables employee retirement plans to consider...more
9/28/2023
/ Administrative Procedure Act ,
Biden Administration ,
Chevron Deference ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Environmental Social & Governance (ESG) ,
Fiduciary ,
Investment ,
Investment Adviser ,
Retirement Plan ,
Rulemaking Process
Last week, the House Financial Services Committee held a hearing entitled "Protecting Investor Interests: Examining Environmental and Social Policy in Financial Regulation." As indicated by the title of the hearing, the...more
Today, President Biden issued the first veto of his presidency. This action had been heavily telegraphed in advance and was widely expected. Nonetheless, this veto is extraordinarily significant....more
Last fall, the Biden Administration's Department of Labor ("DOL") issued a regulation ("Prudence and Loyalty in Selecting Plan Investments and Exercising Shareholder Rights") that, according to a White House press release,...more
The State of Kentucky, like many other states across the country, is now engaged in significant conflict over the politicized issue of ESG investing. Last spring, the Kentucky legislature passed a bill ordering that the...more
Three bills have recently been proposed by a trio of California state legislators concerning ESG financial disclosures and investing. The first, SB 253, would "require all large corporations that do business in California to...more
Last week, SEC Commissioner Uyeda delivered an address in which he "focus[ed] on issues related to asset managers' use of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investment strategies." While his talk addressed many...more
This week, Florida CFO Patronis directed "all participating asset managers to remove ESG investment funds as options for participants in the Deferred Compensation Plan." In effect, Patronis has now barred investments in ESG...more
Yesterday, the Department of Labor "released a final rule under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) . . . [that] clarif[ied] that fiduciaries may consider climate change and other environmental, social, and...more
Today's edition of the New York Times featured an opinion piece that critiqued ESG investing--and not from the perspective that "values" investing is economically counter-productive. (For that viewpoint, the editorial page...more
Today, SEC Chairman Gensler testified before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. His remarks were wide-ranging, and touched upon a number of different SEC priorities--but Chairman Gensler made sure...more
In June 2022, the Supreme Court issued its decision in West Virginia v. EPA, which held that, under the “major questions doctrine,” the EPA lacked the authority under the Clean Air Act to devise emissions caps based on the...more
8/10/2022
/ Clean Air Act ,
Energy Sector ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Environmental Litigation ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Greenwashing ,
Investment ,
National Emissions Standards ,
SCOTUS ,
Sustainability ,
West Virginia v EPA
The international news media have publicly reported that German law enforcement has raided an asset manager concerning a "whistleblower's allegations that [the asset manager] sold investments as 'greener' or 'more...more
Today, the SEC issued two complementary press releases announcing certain proposed rules. First, the SEC announced "proposed amendments to enhance and modernize the Investment Company Act 'Names Rule'" that would "extend the...more
A number of conservative-leaning states, particularly those with a significant fossil fuel industry (e.g., Texas, West Virginia), have begun implementing polices and enacting laws that penalize companies which "pull away from...more
John Galloway, the global head of investment stewardship at Vanguard, Inc.--one of the preeminent index fund managers in the United States--recently announced a set of expected climate-focused disclosures that Vanguard...more