A tiny nugget from the SEC’s new FOIA rules
Yesterday, the SEC posted final amendments to its rules related to FOIA, the Freedom of Information Act, to conform to the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016 and to otherwise update and streamline the regulations. The changes will become effective 30 days after publication in the Federal Register. Due to the scope of the amendments, these final FOIA rules replace the SEC’s existing FOIA rules in their entirety, revamping the organization of the rules. What does that mean? It means that your standard form FOIA SEC rule references are probably soon to be out of date.
Audit Analytics reviews financial restatements in 2017
Audit Analytics has published its annual review of financial restatements, which this year covered a 17-year period. The review showed a double-digit percentage decline in the total number of restatements for the last three years in a row, resulting in a new 17-year low of 553 total restatements. Compare that to 1,859 restatements in 2006! As discussed in this article in Compliance Week, the percentage decline was 19% in 2017, 10% in 2016 and almost 12% in 2015. Stepping back, what the data shows is that, following SOX, the number of restatements skyrocketed, as the new act imposed “new discipline to the financial reporting process through its requirement to report on the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting.” But by 2007, companies seemed to have gained a better handle on the demands of SOX, as the numbers of restatements began to decline.
SEC to vote next week on raising the public float cap for smaller reporting companies and mandatory Inline XBRL
The SEC has noticed an open meeting for next week. Among the matters on the agenda:
whether to adopt amendments to the definition of “smaller reporting company” and other rules and forms in light of the new definition; and
whether to adopt amendments requiring the use of the Inline XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) for the submission of financial statement information.
SEC releases strategic plan
Yesterday, the SEC released for public comment a draft of its proposed strategic plan, which outlines the SEC’s priorities through FY 2022. The plan identifies three strategic goals related to investors, innovation and SEC performance. According to the press release, the plan “highlights the SEC’s commitment to serving the long-term interests of Main Street investors; becoming more innovative, responsive, and resilient to market developments and trends; and leveraging staff expertise, data and analytics to bolster performance.” While not exactly long on detail, the plan does provide a general idea of SEC priorities.
Should the prospect of CAM disclosures cause audit committees to rethink company disclosures?
What are auditors and audit committees doing to get ready for the impending disclosure of CAMs in audit reports ? You remember that, under AS 3101, the new auditing standard for the auditor’s report, auditors will be required (in 2019 for large accelerated filers and phased in for others) to include a discussion of “critical audit matters,” that is, “matters communicated or required to be communicated to the audit committee and that: (1) relate to accounts or disclosures that are material to the financial statements; and (2) involved especially challenging, subjective, or complex auditor judgment.” (See this PubCo post.) Essentially, the concept is intended to capture the matters that kept the auditor up at night, so long as they meet the standard’s criteria. The selection of and disclosure regarding CAMs will certainly present a challenge for both audit committees and auditors. This article from Compliance Week reports that, beyond that challenge, the prospect of CAM disclosure should precipitate a reassessment by audit committees and companies of related corporate disclosure to ensure that companies stay ahead of the curve.
Studies examine external factors that may affect accounting integrity
Are there external factors that might lead companies to fail to protect the integrity of their financial statements, to put it euphemistically? Some recent articles in CFO.com discuss studies that posit various theories.
Clayton says Dodd-Frank rules not going anywhere
For those of you who have been waiting for those big changes to Dodd-Frank to materialize, don’t hold your breath; at least as far as the SEC is concerned, the vast majority of those rules are expected to remain in place. In case you missed it, SEC Chair Jay Clayton, speaking at the annual meeting of the WSJ’s CFO Network, said that “regulators are evaluating how postcrisis rules have performed in practice, and that he had concerns about some of the unintended side effects from some regulations. But any changes will be around the edges, keeping the core of postcrisis overhauls in place, he added. ‘I don’t think Dodd-Frank is changing a great deal, just to put a pin in it,’ he said.” And that tinkering may well be focused primarily on bank-related rules. Of course, there’s always the possibility that Congress may act, but so far it’s been all hat and no cattle. Case in point: the much ballyhooed Financial Choice Act of 2017, which passed the House, but went nowhere in the Senate. (See this PubCo post.)
Corp Fin to publicly release bedbug letters—this kind, not that kind
Corp Fin has announced that it intends to begin to publicly release on EDGAR “bedbug” letters—letters issued by Corp Fin to advise the issuer that its registration statement or other offering document is so deficient that Corp Fin won’t even bother to review it until the filing is amended to repair the deficiencies. (This type of “bedbug” letter is not to be confused with the “poison pen” type of “bedbug” letter that is frequently submitted to the SEC by participants in proxy contests for the purpose of identifying errors, misleading statements and violations made in filings by their opponents. Why they are both called “bedbug” letters is above my pay grade.)
SEC Commissioner Jackson calls for restrictions on executive sales during stock buybacks
In remarks Monday before the Center for American Progress, SEC Commissioner Robert Jackson discussed his recent research on corporate stock buybacks, in the light of the substantial increase in buybacks following the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. His focus: to call on the SEC to update its buyback rules “to limit executives from using stock buybacks to cash out from America’s companies.” If executives are so convinced that “buybacks are best for the company, its workers, and its community,” Jackson suggested, “they should put their money where their mouth is.”
Will pay-ratio results be the catalyst for local action?
Besides shock and awe, did pay-ratio disclosure have any immediate practical consequences? Well, for one, if a company did business in Portland, Oregon, the answer could well be “yes.” You might remember that, at the end of 2016, the Portland City Council, piggybacking on the pay-ratio data that most public companies were required to begin disclosing this year, adopted a measure adding a 10% surcharge to the city’s existing business tax for each company that exceeded a 100-to-1 pay ratio and a 25% surcharge if the pay ratio exceeded 250 to 1. (See this PubCo post.) According to comp consultant Equilar, the median pay ratio for the Russell 3000 was 70:1 (see this PubCo post). So what were the consequences of the Portland surtax—in Portland and beyond?
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