Executive order to dramatically cut regulations inapplicable to SEC

by Cydney Posner As reported by Reuters today, the White House clarified and confirmed, after the signing of the executive order yesterday designed to cut back on federal regulations — and notwithstanding the President’s commentary immediately preceding the signing critical of Dodd-Frank and related rules — that the  executive order does not apply […]

Executive order signed to dramatically cut federal regulations (Updated 1/31/17)

by Cydney Posner The WSJ reports that the yet another executive order was signed today, this one designed to cut back on federal regulation. Under the executive order, federal agencies will need to eliminate two regulations for every new one created.  The intent of the order, according to the new […]

Time to say goodbye to the Dodd-Frank Resource Extraction Disclosure Rules? (updated)

by Cydney Posner In an opinion piece in the WSJ, House Majority Leader, Kevin  McCarthy, said that the House will soon be taking “the ax” to the SEC’s rules on Disclosure of Payments by Resource Extraction Issuers, mandated under Dodd-Frank, which, he argued,  added “an unreasonable compliance burden on American energy […]

Update on proxy access proposals

by Cydney Posner What’s the latest on proxy access proposals?  As you may recall, the line drawn so far by Corp Fin has been that, where the shareholder proposal related to initial adoption of proxy access, Corp Fin has continued to grant no-action relief and permit exclusion of proxy access proposals as […]

In her final speech as SEC Chair, White identifies current trends assailing SEC independence

by Cydney Posner Mary Jo White took the occasion of her final speech as SEC Chair, presented to the Economic Club of New York, to discuss how to maintain the role of the SEC as an effective financial regulator and how the SEC can “continue as a strong independent agency […]

SEC charges company with violations of the rules related to non-GAAP financial measures

by Cydney Posner The Corp Fin staff have been dropping hints for quite a while about potential enforcement actions in connection with abuses of non-GAAP financial measures (see, e.g., this PubCo post), and an interesting one has now materialized.  In an Order released today, the SEC announced settled charges against MDC […]

KPMG surveys audit committee concerns

by Cydney Posner What are audit committee members’ greatest concerns? Audit committee members participating in KPMG’s 2017 Global Audit Committee Pulse Survey identified risk management as the biggest challenge for audit committees in 2017, with 42% of those surveyed characterizing their existing risk management programs as requiring “substantial work,” and […]

It didn’t take long — House passes bills to “regulate” the regulators

by Cydney Posner Welcome to the future! On Wednesday, the House Republicans (with five Democratic votes) passed H.R. 5, the Regulatory Accountability Act of 2017, a bill that would change the way federal agencies issue regulations and guidance. This bill would require agencies to, as part of their rulemaking processes, […]

Is there a fix for short-termism?

by Cydney Posner Much has been written about the problems associated with the prevalence of short-term thinking in corporate America.  As noted in a post from The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation, a recent academic study revealed that “three quarters of senior American corporate officials […]

Likely interim SEC Chair spells out his priorities

by Cydney Posner According to this article in the WSJ,  SEC Commissioner Michael Piwowar, who will probably become acting Chair when current Chair Mary Jo White steps down this month, has agreed with fellow Commissioner Kara Stein about various rulemakings that they might pursue in the interim until nominee Jay […]