What is the financial impact of legislation targeting companies taking disfavored stances?
As discussed in this PubCo post, we’ve lately been witnessing a profusion of state and local legislation targeting companies that express public positions or adopt policies on sociopolitical issues or conduct their businesses in a manner disfavored by the government in power. Bloomberg observes that, while “companies usually faced mainly reputational damage for their social actions, politicians are increasingly eager to craft legislation that can be used as a cudgel against businesses that don’t share their social views.” And many of these state actions are aimed, not just at expressed political positions, but rather at environmental and social measures that companies may view as strictly responsive to investor or employee concerns, shareholder proposals, current or anticipated governmental regulation, identified business risks or even business opportunities. These laws are presumably detrimental to the targeted companies, but are there any adverse consequences for the state or locality adopting this legislation and its citizens? To better understand the phenomenon and its impact on financial market outcomes, this paper from authors at the University of Pennsylvania and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago looked at the impact of one example of this type of legislation—a law recently adopted in Texas that blocks banks from government contracts in the state if the banks restrict funding to oil and gas companies or gun manufacturers. The authors concluded that the Texas legislation has had, and is expected to continue to have, a “large negative impact on the ability for local governments to access external finance. Our results suggest that if economies around the world that are heavily reliant on fossil fuels attempt to undo ESG policies by imposing restrictions on the financial sector, local borrowers are likely to face significant adverse consequences such as decreased credit access and poor financial markets outcomes.”
Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive receives final approval, applicable to US companies with EU presence
On Monday, according to this press release from the Council of the European Union, all 27 members of the European Council voted in favor of the adoption of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, the last step for the CSRD to become law in the EU. The new rules require subject companies […]
Should we link pay to ESG measures?
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 performance.” To be sure, some companies have long tied executive comp to particular […]
SEC and DOJ conducting Rule 10b5-1 probe
As the SEC mulls its 10b5-1 proposal (see this PubCo post), neither its Enforcement Division nor the DOJ are waiting around to see what happens. According to Bloomberg, they are using data analytics “in a sweeping examination of preplanned equity sales by C-suite officials.” The question is whether executives “been gaming prearranged stock-sale programs designed to thwart the possibility of insider trading”? Of course, there have been countless studies and “exposés” of alleged 10b5-1 abuse over the years, the most recent being this front-page analysis of trading by insiders under Rule 10b5-1 plans in the WSJ (see this PubCo post). While these concerns have been percolating for quite some time, no legislation or rules have yet been adopted (although several bills have been introduced and the SEC proposed new regs at the end of 2021). Bloomberg reports that these investigations by Enforcement and the DOJ are consistent with the recent “tougher line on long-standing Wall Street trading practices during the Biden era. Federal officials requested information from executives early this year, said one person. They’re now preparing to bring multiple cases, said two other people.”
SEC reports Enforcement stats—the “risk-reward calculation is not what it was”
The SEC has announced its fiscal 2022 Enforcement stats, which hit new records. According to the press release, during the year, the SEC filed 760 total enforcement actions, representing a 9% increase over the prior year. That total included 462 new, or “stand-alone,” enforcement actions, which “ran the gamut of conduct, from ‘first-of-their-kind’ actions to cases charging traditional securities law violations.” The SEC also recovered a record $6.4 billion in civil penalties, disgorgement and pre-judgment interest in SEC actions, an increase of 68% from $3.8 billion in the prior year. Civil penalties, at $4.2 billion, were also the highest on record. The press release emphasized that the increase in penalties is intended to “deter future misconduct and enhance public accountability.” In a number of cases, the SEC “recalibrated penalties for certain violations, included prophylactic remedies, and required admissions where appropriate” to make “clear that the fines were not just a cost of doing business.” According to Director of Enforcement Gurbir Grewal, the SEC doesn’t “expect to break these records and set new ones each year because we expect behaviors to change. We expect compliance.” Interestingly, disgorgement, at $2.2 billion, declined 6% from last year. As reported by the WSJ, Grewal, speaking at a recent conference, highlighted the fact that the SEC imposed more penalties than disgorgements, which, in his view, “demonstrated that ‘the potential consequences of violating the law are significantly greater than the potential rewards.’… He added that the SEC ordered more than twice as much in disgorgements as it did in penalties for the five fiscal years before the last one. ‘So while disgorgement was slightly down from the prior year…it is the first time that the amount ordered to be paid in penalties has been double the amount ordered to be paid in disgorgement,’ he said. ‘The increased penalty-to-disgorgement ratio nonetheless demonstrates that the risk-reward calculation is not what it was even a few years ago.’”
Will climate disclosures translate into climate action?
In light of the billions that even the SEC’s economic analysis estimates would be spent complying with its proposed climate disclosure regulations (see this PubCo post, this PubCo post and this PubCo post), will those disclosures catalyze real climate action? In this recent EY Global Climate Risk Barometer, accounting firm EY analyzed why, notwithstanding the vast amounts spent on climate disclosures, they “are still not translating into practical strategies to accelerate decarbonization.” In fact, EY pointed out, “global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions rose by 6% in 2021 to 36.3 billion tonnes [a metric unit of mass equal to 2,240 lbs], their highest-ever level, according to the International Energy Agency.” Will companies be able to “close the major disconnect between the disclosures they are making” and “their own transformation journeys”? Is integrating climate risk into the financial statements the key? Is climate risk disclosure just a “box-ticking exercise” or, by enabling accountability, can climate disclosures help to accelerate “the decarbonization process”?
Political spending transparency from Russell 1000 companies? Not so much
In the wake of the events of January 6, a number of companies, highly sensitized to any misalignment between their political contributions and their public statements or announced core values, determined to suspend or discontinue some or all of their political donations (although many have since resumed business as usual). As social and political unrest and political polarization have continued, demand for disclosure about corporate political spending has increased. In the midst of an unusually fraught mid-term election season, the Center for Political Accountability and the Zicklin Center for Business Ethics Research at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania released their annual CPA-Zicklin Index of Corporate Political Disclosure and Accountability for 2022. The Index annually benchmarks public companies’ disclosure, management and oversight of corporate political spending, and includes specific rankings for companies based on their Index scores, as well as best practice examples of disclosure and other helpful information. (See this PubCo post.) This year, accompanying the Index is a new CPA-Zicklin Model Code of Conduct for Corporate Political Spending, designed to provide a “thorough and ethical framework” for corporate political spending. CPA launched the Index in 2011 following the decision by SCOTUS in Citizens United, benchmarking only the S&P 100. In 2015, it began to benchmark the S&P 500. This year, the Index has expanded its coverage to the Russell 1000. The difference in the levels of transparency between the S&P 500 and the Russell 1000 (excluding companies in the S&P 500) is dramatic.
FASB issues proposed ASU on segment reporting
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 activities, as well as its overall performance and potential future cash flows. Although financial statements do provide information about segment revenue and a measure of profit or loss, not much information is disclosed about segment expenses. According to FASB Chair Richard Jones, the “proposed ASU would represent the FASB’s most significant change to segment reporting since 1997….On the basis of our extensive stakeholder outreach, the proposed ASU would provide investors and other allocators of capital with valuable insights into significant segment expenses, expand segment disclosures reported in interim periods, and require disclosures for single-segment entities.”
What happened at the 2022 PLI Securities Regulation Institute?
At the PLI Securities Regulation Institute last week, the plethora of SEC rulemaking took some hits. It wasn’t simply the quantity of SEC rules and proposals, although that was certainly a factor. But the SEC has issued a lot of proposals in the past. Rather, it was the difficulty and complexity of implementation of these new rules and proposals that seemed to have created the concern that affected companies may just be overwhelmed. Former Corp Fin Director Meredith Cross, a co-chair of the program, pronounced the SEC’s climate proposal “outrageously” difficult, complicated and expensive for companies to implement, and those problems, the panel worried, would only be compounded by the adoption of expected new rules in the EU that would be applicable to many US companies and their EU subsidiaries. (See this Cooley Alert.) The panel feared that companies would be bombarded with a broad, complicated and often inconsistent series of climate/ESG disclosure mandates. Single materiality/double materiality anyone? But it wasn’t just the proposed climate disclosure that contributed to the concern. Recent rulemakings or proposals on stock buybacks, pay versus performance and clawbacks were also singled out as especially challenging for companies to put into effect.
If you haven’t already done so, please be sure to vote!
More heat about comment periods—is it a portent of something more?
SEC Chair Gary Gensler has certainly heard from Republicans with some frequency about proposal comment periods that they consider too abbreviated. The charge is that, under Gensler’s tenure, the time periods allowed for public responses to voluminous and complex proposals—which were initially set at 30 days, and then, in response to complaints, extended for a longer period under a slightly more complex formulation—just don’t leave enough time for public review and comment. (Of course, the not-very-secret secret is that the SEC typically accepts comments submitted well after the deadlines.) SEC Commissioners Hester Peirce and Mark Uyeda, as well as former Commissioner Elad Roisman, have all taken on the issue (see the SideBar below). And it’s not just commissioners that have tackled the comment period issue— Republicans in Congress have also voiced disapproval. Now, as reported by Politico, in a September 13 letter that has recently surfaced, a group of 12 Senate Democrats have joined the chorus. Although the letter is focused on the duration of comment periods, according to Politico, “Senate Democrats are privately urging SEC Chair Gary Gensler to slow work and take more time for feedback on a slew of regulations rattling Wall Street, as tensions surrounding the agency’s Biden-era agenda reach a boiling point.” Are problems with the comment period signaling a larger issue?