Audit committee oversight of the new revenue recognition standard: Center for Audit Quality comes to the rescue

by Cydney Posner As discussed in this PubCo post, the SEC’s Office of the Chief Accountant has continued to beat the drums to encourage companies and their audit committees to hunker down and address the impending effectiveness in 2018 of the new revenue recognition standard, particularly with respect to assessment […]

CDI salmagundi (QIBs, foreign private issuers, Reg S and more)

by Cydney Posner Earlier this month, Corp Fin recently released a slew of new CDIs relating to qualified institutional buyers under Rule 144A as well as all things international. Dedicated to those who like to  Below are summaries.

SEC Chief Accountant and staff speak at AICPA National Conference

by Cydney Posner Earlier this month, at the 2016 AICPA conference on current developments, the SEC’s Chief Accountant and several staff members of his office shared their insights on a variety of key accounting topics, among them the following:

SEC Chair White to Republican Senators: fuggedaboudit

by Cydney Posner Ok, she was actually much more polite than that.  You might recall that, in November after the election, House Republicans sent a letter to federal agencies requesting that they not engage in any “midnight” rulemaking — adoption of new rules before the new administration is sworn in.  (See this […]

A city takes on CEO pay it considers “disproportionate” — will others follow suit?

by Cydney Posner The NYT reports on an effort by one city to address income inequality by imposing a surtax on companies that pay their CEOs more than 100 times the median pay of their rank-and-file workers. According to the article, on December 7, the City Council of Portland, Oregon […]

Adhering to Dirks, SCOTUS decides Salman v. US

by Cydney Posner In a case decided unanimously today, Salman v. United States, SCOTUS upheld the Ninth Circuit affirmation of Bassam Salman’s conviction for insider trading, “adher[ing] to Dirks, which easily resolves the narrow issue presented here.”

Hitting populist note, U.K. proposes enhancements to corporate governance — will the new U.S. administration follow the populist playbook?

by Cydney Posner One of the prevailing narratives of the recent Presidential election was that the same gestalt that drove the Brits to vote for Brexit also animated the pro-Trump forces and led to his presidential victory.  Why then, when it comes to regulation of corporate conduct, do the two […]

Environmental shareholder proposals increase in frequency and sophistication, but will they continue to be viable?

by Cydney Posner In this article, the WSJ discusses the increased frequency and sophistication of shareholder proposals regarding the environment. In particular, the piece observes that shareholder proposals focusing on environmental issues have evolved “from requests for greenhouse gas emissions cuts to demands for disclosure of strategies to manage climate […]

SEC posts report to Congress on Modernization and Simplification of Regulation S-K

by Cydney Posner The SEC has posted the staff’s Report on Modernization and Simplification of Regulation S-K, a report to Congress required by the FAST Act. (See this PubCo post.) Although required by the FAST Act, this report builds on and reflects the review that the SEC has been conducting […]

That was quick — proxy access test drive hits a wall

by Cydney Posner You probably recall that, on November 9, 2016, GAMCO Asset Management Inc. (entity affiliated with activist investor Mario Gabelli) and certain affiliates used the proxy access bylaws recently adopted at National Fuel Gas Company, an NYSE-listed diversified natural gas company, to nominate a candidate for election to the […]