Corp Fin staff extends earlier temporary relief addressing logistical issues
In March and April, the Corp Fin staff issued three statements providing temporary relief to address various logistical issues and other complications resulting from the COVID-19-related shutdowns. The relief related to authentication document retention requirements under Rule 302(b) of Reg S-T, submission of Forms 144 in paper and submission of a variety of other paper forms outside of Form 144. In two cases, the staff statements had provided relief only through June 30. Unfortunately, that turned out to be much too optimistic. Today, the staff extended the time frames for all three statements for an indeterminate period. The new statements can be found here, here and here. In each case, the temporary relief applies “until the staff provides public notice that it no longer will be in effect; that notice will be published at least two weeks before the announced termination date.”
SEC Chief Accountant issues statement on high-quality financial reporting in light of COVID-19
A couple of days ago, Sagar Teotia, SEC Chief Accountant, issued a Statement on the Continued Importance of High-Quality Financial Reporting for Investors in Light of COVID-19. The Statement, issued in advance of the close of the second quarter, follows on Teotia’s earlier Statement, issued in April, in which Teotia addressed, among other topics, estimates and judgments as well as temporary relief provided under the CARES Act for banks and other financial institutions. (See this PubCo post.) In this new Statement, Teotia again addresses estimates and judgments, as well as disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting, going-concern issues, engagement by the Office of Chief Accountant with FASB, the PCAOB and international standard setters and OCA’s engagement with audit committees.
Corp Fin issues supplemental Disclosure Guidance: Topic No. 9A Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Yesterday, the staff of Corp Fin issued Disclosure Guidance: Topic No. 9A, which supplements CF Topic No. 9 with additional views of the staff regarding disclosures related to operations, liquidity and capital resources that companies should consider as a consequence of business and market disruptions resulting from COVID-19. You might recall that, in March, the staff issued CF Topic No. 9, which offered the staff’s views regarding disclosure considerations, trading on material inside information and reporting financial results in the context of COVID-19 and related uncertainties. (See this PubCo post.) As with the original guidance, the new supplemental guidance includes a valuable series of questions designed to help companies assess, and to stimulate effective disclosure regarding, the impact of COVID-19, in advance of the close of the June quarter. As always these days, the guidance makes clear that it represents only the views of the staff, is not binding and has no legal force or effect.
Will there be a renewed interest in IPOs of public benefit corporations?
I can think of only one public company that is currently a Delaware Public Benefit Corporation. That’s Laureate Education, which initially filed with the SEC in 2015 and went effective in 2017. (See this PubCo post.) Now, finally, we have a second company that has filed for its IPO as a PBC—Lemonade, Inc., which declares on the cover page of its prospectus that it is incorporated in Delaware as a PBC as a demonstration of its “long-term commitment to make insurance a public good.” It’s been quite a long dry spell since the PBC legislation was signed into law in 2013. In the last few years, however, we have witnessed intensifying investor focus on sustainability as a strategy (see, for example, this PubCo post), as well as swelling numbers of companies declaring their commitments to all stakeholders, as reflected, for example, in the Business Roundtable’s adoption of a new Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation (see this PubCo post) and the World Economic Forum’s Stakeholder Principles in the COVID Era (see this PubCo post). What’s more, new legislation just passed by the House in Delaware will, if ultimately signed into law, make it easier to slip in and out of PBC status. [Update: This bill was signed into law on July 16.] Will these trends toward sustainability and stakeholder capitalism, together with the Delaware legislation, fuel a renewed interest in the PBC for public companies and expecting-to-become public companies? Will Lemonade open the floodgates?
A couple of quick updates
Just a couple of quick updates regarding proposed Delaware legislation and previous SEC relief:
Is it time for a reimagined compensation committee?
Perhaps during the shutdown, when you’re watching more TV than you might like to admit, you’ve seen some new commercials a bit like this: a happy face-masked employee on the line or in a lab displaying all the sanitizing and other pandemic-related safety precautions that the company is taking to protect the employee’s work environment. Cut to the employee at home with giggling youngsters, illustrating the importance of safety measures at work to protect family at home. Or a company emphasizing the value of its employees in keeping the country moving forward or its employees in lab coats that persevere to find a cure no matter what. Or a shot of employees performing the essential service of implementing safety measures for customers. What’s the point? To drive home that a company that recognizes the value of its employees and manifests such concern for their safety and welfare is a company worth buying from. This new emphasis on employee welfare as a corporate selling point may have been sparked by COVID-19 but, at another level, it may well reflect broader concerns that have been marinating for a while—about the essential value of previously overlooked elements of the workforce, about physical risk allocation, about economic inequity and, to some extent, even about social justice.
How to address some of these concerns related to the workforce—particularly economic inequity—is the subject of a new paper co-authored by former Delaware Chief Justice Leo Strine, “Toward Fair Gainsharing and a Quality Workplace for Employees: How a Reconceived Compensation Committee Might Help Make Corporations More Responsible Employers and Restore Faith in American Capitalism.” The goal is to reimagine the compensation committee so that it becomes the board committee “most deeply engaged in all aspects of the company’s relationship with its workforce,” from retaining and motivating the workforce to achieve the company’s business objectives, to overseeing that the company fulfills its obligations as a responsible employer and, most of all, to positioning the company to “restore fair gainsharing.”
Tips for sustainability reporting
In his annual letter to CEOs in January, CEO Laurence Fink announced that BlackRock was putting “sustainability at the center of [its] investment approach,” and made clear that companies needed to step up their games when it comes to sustainability disclosure. (See this PubCo post.) Even in the aftermath of the COVID-19 outbreak, both BlackRock and State Street have issued statements indicating their intention to continue to center their stewardship on the demand for additional disclosure on key ESG and sustainability issues such as climate change risk and human capital management. For those seeking to improve their ESG reporting, a managing director of consultant Protiviti offers a number of recommendations in this Forbes article.
Companies divided on impact of COVID-19 on sustainability efforts
What has been the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on companies’ sustainability efforts? On the one hand, as discussed in this article from the WSJ, C-suite occupants have been “trying to figure out what they’re willing to throw overboard as the economic storm spawned by the pandemic is swamping their ships. Businesses that were planning to help save the world are now simply saving themselves….History suggests this new [sustainability] paradigm is probably on the back burner.” Even BlackRock, which had previously announced that it was putting “sustainability at the center of [its] investment approach,” acknowledged in April, that “certain non-financial projects like sustainability reports had been ‘de-prioritized’ due to COVID-19. ‘We recognize that in the near-term companies may need to reallocate resources to address immediate priorities in these uncertain times.’ BlackRock’s report stated. BlackRock said it would ‘expect a return to companies focusing on material sustainability management and reporting in due course.’”
On the other hand, however, as this article from Financial Executives International observed, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted “the very issues that have been driving ESG concerns—managing resources, sustainability, community impact and employee well-being.” While it might have been “easy to assume the current crisis may permanently shift attention away from environmental, social and governance (ESG) concerns as management teams grapple with existential issues,” it turned out that “the very actions companies are taking will likely bring them closer to the multi-stakeholder, long-term value principles that lie at the heart of ESG.” How are companies viewing the effects?
NACD polls directors on reopening challenges and trends
To gain insight into the new governance challenges faced by boards over the next few months as companies begin a reopening and recovery process—hopefully a permanent one—the NACD undertook a pulse survey of 306 directors across multiple industries, conducted between May 14 and May 21. The survey revealed that directors expect the COVID-19 pandemic to have lasting effects—on business strategy, on the nature of work and on board-management interactions.
SEC Chair supports foreign companies delisting bill
In May, the Senate passed the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act, which would amend SOX to impose certain requirements on a public company that is audited by a registered public accounting firm with a branch or office located in a foreign jurisdiction that the PCAOB is “unable to inspect or investigate completely because of a position taken by an authority in the foreign jurisdiction.” And, as previously discussed, Nasdaq has also proposed rule changes aimed at addressing the same issue. (See this PubCo post.) A number of key players are speaking up to endorse these actions.
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