Category: Securities

Corp Fin issues new CDIs providing guidance on Rule 701 primarily in the merger context

by Cydney Posner Corp Fin has just issued some new CDIs providing guidance on Rule 701, with all but one of the CDIs addressing the application of Rule 701 in the context of merger transactions.  The new CDIs are summarized below:

The Financial CHOICE Act would dismantle a whole lot more in Dodd-Frank than just financial regulation

by Cydney Posner There has been a fair amount of press regarding the Financial CHOICE Act, a new bill sponsored by Jeb Hensarling, Chair of the House Financial Services Committee. The actual bill has not yet been released, but an executive summary is available.  Most of the press attention has […]

SEC permits use of Inline XBRL — will it be enough to make XBRL great?

by Cydney Posner Until now, companies have been required to provide the financial statements accompanying their periodic and current reports in “structured,” i.e., machine-readable, format using XBRL and to provide this XBRL data as an exhibit to their filings. Today, the SEC issued an order allowing companies, on a voluntary […]

Could disclosure avert a decline in investment in human capital?

by Cydney Posner Much attention has been paid to the decline in spending on R&D and capital investments attributed to short-termist myopia. Hedge fund activists have been impugned for pressuring companies to return capital to shareholders in the form of buybacks and dividends at the expense of funding R&D and […]

No, please, not another summary!

by Cydney Posner The SEC has adopted an interim final rule implementing a provision of the FAST Act that will expressly allow a company, at its option, to include a summary in its Form 10–K, provided that each item in the summary includes a hyperlink cross-reference to the related material […]

Increasing prevalence of non-GAAP measures in proxy statements

by Cydney Posner According to the WSJ, 2016 saw the biggest gap since 2009 between non-GAAP pro forma results and GAAP results. But non-GAAP measures are not just proliferating in earnings releases, they are also proliferating in proxy statements.  The WSJ article reports that, according to Audit Analytics, the term […]

SEC posts Regulatory Flexibility Agenda for 2017

by Cydney Posner As noted in Broc’s blog on thecorporatecounsel.net, the SEC has posted its  Regulatory Flexibility Agenda for 2017.  And, as Broc observes, these agendas are, to borrow his characterization, purely “aspirational,” and do not commit the SEC to take any of the actions identified or preclude its taking […]

House passes bill for five-year extension of JOBS Act exemption from auditor attestation requirement

by Cydney Posner On Monday, the House passed the Fostering Innovation Act of 2015, notwithstanding this  letter to Paul Ryan and Nancy Pelosi from the SEC’s Investor Advocate urging a vote against it.  The bill, which presumably now moves to the Senate for consideration, amends Section 404(b) of SOX  (internal […]

SEC posts new and revised CDIs on non-GAAP financial measures

by Cydney Posner The SEC’s verbal blitzkrieg on abuses of non-GAAP financial measures has finally made its way into some new and revised CDIs. As discussed in this PubCo post, in early May, SEC Deputy Chief Accountant Wesley Bricker, speaking before the 2016 Baruch College Financial Reporting Conference, emphasized that the […]

SEC adopts final rule amendments completing rulemaking mandate under the JOBS Act

by Cydney Posner Yesterday, the SEC adopted final rule amendments to implement certain sections of the JOBS Act and the FAST Act. The amendments were adopted substantially as proposed in December 2014 (and once again without holding an open SEC meeting).  The amendments revise SEC rules to reflect the new, […]