Senate passes FAST Act

by Cydney Posner The Hill is reporting that the “Senate approved a five-year, $305 billion highway bill [the FAST Act] Thursday, sending it to President Obama with just one day to spare before the scheduled expiration of the nation’s road and transit spending.  The measure passed by a 83-16 tally, […]

FAST Act passes House

by Cydney Posner Reuters reports: “In a show of Congressional bipartisanship, the House of Representatives voted 359 to 65 to send the $305 billion legislation [the FAST Act] to the Senate. It is widely expected to be approved and forwarded to the White House for President Barack Obama’s signature before […]

Two tips for audit committees

by Cydney Posner It’s getting to be that time of year when visions of sugarplums may dance in your head — alongside more mundane thoughts and concerns about financial statements, audits, audit committees and year-end reporting that just might disturb your otherwise pleasant holiday season.  With that in mind, this column  in […]

Provisions to modify the JOBS Act and otherwise benefit smaller companies survive conference and will soon be up for vote

by Cydney Posner As discussed in this PubCo post, HR 22, now called the “FAST Act” – it was the “DRIVE Act” and before that the “Hire More Heroes Act” – is not just about transportation and highways (as important as that may be).  Buried in the bill are several […]

Trinity Wall Street withdraws cert petition in connection with shareholder proposal to Wal-Mart

by Cydney Posner In the case of  Trinity Wall Street v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (see this PubCo post), Trinity has asked to withdraw its petition to SCOTUS for cert, and the petition has been dismissed under Rule 46. As a result, SCOTUS won’t be sharing its views of the ordinary business […]

House hearing on conflict minerals rule: a mixed bag

by Cydney Posner At a hearing last week before a subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee, the members heard testimony regarding the Dodd-Frank conflict minerals provision. The Chair expressed concern that  the provision was causing more harm than good, while the ranking member saw more hopeful signs. The bottom line?  […]

Will the SEC finally provide some relief from the nearly incomprehensible proxy statement requirement for a New Plan Benefits Table?

by Cydney Posner Keith Higgins, Director of Corp Fin, hinted that he might be giving us a welcome gift in the future: a revision of Item 10 of Schedule 14A, the proxy statement – in my view, a component of the disclosure rules that has too long been ignored and […]

Will clawbacks have an unintended consequence?

by Cydney Posner A recent  study, “Why Do Restatements Decrease in a Clawback Environment? An Investigation into Financial Reporting Executives’ Decision-Making during the Restatement Process,” shows that clawbacks may have unintended consequences.  The study, conducted by an academic at Miami University of Ohio and published in The Accounting Review, showed […]

Another study shows increase in enhanced disclosures regarding the audit committee

by Cydney Posner The Center for Audit Quality and Audit Analytics have jointly released their second-year analysis, Audit Committee Transparency Barometer.  The analysis, which studied proxy statements of companies in the S&P Composite 1500, showed “double-digit growth in the percentage of S&P 500 companies disclosing information in several key areas […]