Gensler plans to “freshen up” Rule 10b5-1
Yesterday, in remarks before the WSJ’s CFO Network Summit, SEC Chair Gary Gensler scooped the Summit with news of plans to address issues he and others have identified in Rule 10b5-1 plans. Problems with 10b5-1 plans have long been recognized—including by former SEC Chair Jay Clayton—so it will be interesting to see if any proposal that emerges will find support among the Commissioners on both sides of the SEC’s aisle. In an interview, Gensler also responded to questions about climate disclosure rules, removal of the PCAOB Chair, Enforcement, SPACs and other matters.
SEC removes Duhnke as PCAOB Chair
On Friday, the SEC announced that it had “removed” William D. Duhnke III from the PCAOB and designated Duane M. DesParte to serve as Acting Chair, effective Friday. Duhnke has been serving as Chair since January 2018. The SEC also announced that it intends to seek candidates to fill all five board positions on the PCAOB. In the press release, SEC Chair Gary Gensler said that the “PCAOB has an opportunity to live up to Congress’s vision in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act….I look forward to working with my fellow commissioners, Acting Chair DesParte, and the staff of the PCAOB to set it on a path to better protect investors by ensuring that public company audits are informative, accurate, and independent.” What’s it all about?
Commissioner Roisman suggests ways to reduce the costs of ESG disclosure
In remarks yesterday before the ESG Board Forum, Putting the Electric Cart before the Horse: Addressing Inevitable Costs of a New ESG Disclosure Regime, SEC Commissioner Elad Roisman weighed in with his views on mandatory prescriptive ESG requirements and the likely associated costs. As he has indicated before, he’s not really keen on the idea, particularly the environmental and social components of potential requirements. As a general matter, while investors want to see comparable standardized environmental data, in his view, standardization of that type of information is really hard to do; some of it “is inherently imprecise, relies on underlying assumptions that continually evolve, and can be reasonably calculated in different ways. And ultimately, unless this information can meaningfully inform an investment decision, it is at best not useful and at worst misleading.” But, if a new regulatory regime requiring ESG disclosure is adopted—and it certainly looks that way— he has some ideas for ways to make it less costly for companies to comply.
SEC to reconsider rules and guidance regarding proxy advisory firms
Whether and how to regulate proxy advisory firms, such as ISS and Glass Lewis, has long been a contentious issue, with some arguing that their vote recommendations were plagued by conflicts of interest and often erroneous, while others saw no reason for regulation given that the clients of these firms were satisfied with their services. In September 2019, the SEC published in the Federal Register a new interpretation and guidance directed at proxy advisory firms confirming that their vote recommendations were considered to be “solicitations” under the proxy rules and subject to the anti-fraud provisions, and providing some “suggestions” about disclosures that would help avoid liability. (See this PubCo post.) In July 2020, the SEC adopted new amendments to the proxy rules regarding proxy advisory firms, codifying the SEC’s interpretation that made proxy voting advice subject to the proxy solicitation rules. In addition, the SEC adopted two new conditions to the exemptions from those rules for proxy advisory firms, which required disclosure of conflicts of interest and adoption of principles-based policies to make proxy voting advice available to the subject companies and to notify clients of company responses. Compliance with the new conditions was not required prior to December 1, 2021. (See this PubCo post). Yesterday, SEC Chair Gary Gensler directed the staff to consider whether to recommend further regulatory action regarding proxy voting advice. In his statement, Gensler highlighted his direction that the staff consider “whether to recommend that the Commission revisit its 2020 codification of the definition of solicitation as encompassing proxy voting advice, the 2019 Interpretation and Guidance regarding that definition, and the conditions on exemptions from the information and filing requirements in the 2020 Rule Amendments, among other matters.” As a result, Corp Fin issued a Statement indicating that “it will not recommend enforcement action to the Commission based on the 2019 Interpretation and Guidance or the 2020 Rule Amendments during the period in which the Commission is considering further regulatory action in this area.” What approach will the SEC now take to proxy advisory firm regulation?
The House hears about SPACs
Congress now seems to be all over this SPAC phenomenon. Last week a subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee held a hearing on “Going Public: SPACs, Direct Listings, Public Offerings, and the Need for Investor Protections.” What is the headline from the hearing? All the witnesses agreed that, to prevent regulatory arbitrage, all IPO vehicles, whether traditional IPOs or SPACs, should operate on a level playing field and be subject to the same type of regulation of disclosure and liability. Many House members also took the opportunity to promote their own proposed or pending legislation about the capital markets, and several House members offered their recommendations for a happy marriage. At a separate hearing, SEC Chair Gary Gensler gave testimony before a different subcommittee, which in part addressed SPACs. Is some kind of Congressional action in the offing?
SEC Commissioner Lee dispels myths about materiality
Earlier this week, SEC Commissioner Allison Lee delivered keynote remarks at the 2021 ESG Disclosure Priorities Event hosted by the AICPA, the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, SASB and the Center for Audit Quality. Her topic: “Myths and Misconceptions about ‘Materiality.’” In the context of the discussion about potential mandatory ESG disclosures, Lee observed, there has been a lot of attention to the concept of materiality, which is fundamental to our securities laws. The public company disclosure system “is generally oriented around providing information that is important to reasonable investors,” and “the viewpoint of the reasonable investor is the lens through which we all are meant to operate.” Since investors are the ones who make the investment choices, “investors are also the ones who decide what information they need to make those choices.” But, in the course of the ongoing discourse about ESG, Lee has found that a number of myths have proliferated about the role and meaning of materiality; her purpose in these remarks is to dissect and dispel those myths, which she believes have hampered the “important debate on how best to craft a rule proposal on climate and ESG risks and opportunities.”
Why event-driven securities litigation has become a thing—and a lucrative one too
If Matt Levine has a mantra in his “Money Stuff” column on Bloomberg, it’s this: everything is securities fraud. “You know the basic idea,” he often says in his most acerbic voice,
“A company does something bad, or something bad happens to it. Its stock price goes down, because of the bad thing. Shareholders sue: Doing the bad thing and not immediately telling shareholders about it, the shareholders say, is securities fraud. Even if the company does immediately tell shareholders about the bad thing, which is not particularly common, the shareholders might sue, claiming that the company failed to disclose the conditions and vulnerabilities that allowed the bad thing to happen. And so contributing to global warming is securities fraud, and sexual harassment by executives is securities fraud, and customer data breaches are securities fraud, and mistreating killer whales is securities fraud, and whatever else you’ve got. Securities fraud is a universal regulatory regime; anything bad that is done by or happens to a public company is also securities fraud, and it is often easier to punish the bad thing as securities fraud than it is to regulate it directly.” (Money Stuff, 6/26/19)
(See this PubCo post.) But should everything really be securities fraud? An interesting new paper examines the phenomenon.
White House issues Executive Order on climate
The White House has issued an Executive Order expressing its policy “to advance consistent, clear, intelligible, comparable, and accurate disclosure of climate-related financial risk… including both physical and transition risks.” The EO states that the “intensifying impacts of climate change present physical risk to assets, publicly traded securities, private investments, and companies—such as increased extreme weather risk leading to supply chain disruptions. In addition, the global shift away from carbon-intensive energy sources and industrial processes presents transition risk to many companies, communities, and workers. At the same time, this global shift presents generational opportunities to enhance U.S. competitiveness and economic growth, while also creating well-paying job opportunities for workers.”
House passes Insider Trading Prohibition Act—will it pass the Senate?
On Tuesday, the Insider Trading Prohibition Act passed the house by a pretty big bipartisan majority—350 to 75. Currently, there is no explicit statutory prohibition on insider trading and prosecutors have relied on general fraud statutes to pursue charges. The bill would add to the Exchange Act a new Section 16A that would define insider trading and make it illegal. In an interview with Reuters, the bill’s sponsor, Jim Himes, said that “the legislation does not expand insider trading law but simpli?es and codi?es the law as articulated by courts through decades of opinions.” A version of the bill passed the House in 2019 by an even stronger vote, but never made it through the Republican-led Senate. No,w with Democrats in charge, will the bill be passed and signed into law?
Leadership survey: How prepared are leaders to face key business issues? Do executives think boards give good advice?
While it’s certainly not yet in the rear-view mirror, as we start to see COVID-19 begin to fade as an all-consuming crisis for business—thank you science and scientists!—what are the next issues that corporate leaders must face and how ready are they to face them? Consultant Russell Reynolds Associates has just released its 2021 Global Leadership Monitor?, designed to track top business issues and monitor leadership preparedness. Some of the more interesting findings: In terms of “stakeholder capitalism,” while customers are top of the heap, employees come in second as key stakeholders—ahead of stockholders. Most fascinating perhaps is this revelation: 40% of CEOs and other C-Suite executives “don’t believe the executive team receives good advice and input from the board.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.