Tag: employee stock options

Clayton advocates “good corporate hygiene” when it comes to material inside information

In this letter from SEC Chair Jay Clayton to Representative Brad Sherman following up on a previous conversation, Clayton offers his views and provides some insights and signals on a number of policy issues related to “good corporate hygiene.” The topics include controls and policies designed to prevent insider trading, Rule 10b5-1 plans and the grant of stock options while in possession of material inside information. Apparently, the issues addressed were significant enough that Clayton has asked Corp Fin director Bill Hinman and others on the staff to raise these issues “in upcoming speaking engagements and to remind market participants of these views.”

SEC Advisory Committee recommends changes to Rule 701

On Wednesday of last week, at the final meeting of the SEC Advisory Committee on Small and Emerging Companies (soon to morph into the Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee), the Committee heard a presentation on Rule 701, the exemption from registration typically relied on by private companies for equity compensation issued to employees, directors and consultants under compensatory benefit plans or contracts. At the conclusion of the presentation, the Committee resolved, as one of its final actions, to advise the SEC to adopt the presentation’s recommendations for changes to the Rule.

Are stock options a counterweight to whistleblower bounties?

by Cydney Posner A new academic study, “Rank and File Employees and the Discovery of Misreporting: The Role of Stock Options,” finds that companies that flout financial reporting rules tend to grant more stock options than their peers that adhere to those rules. Moreover, the study found that violators that […]