Tag: SEC Division of Corporation Finance
Shutdown anyone?
Corp Fin has posted an announcement regarding its plans in the event of a federal government shutdown. The announcement indicates that its activities would be “extremely limited.” (At a hearing yesterday before the House Financial Services Committee, SEC Chair Gary Gensler said that the entire SEC staff would be down to about 400 employees.) According to the announcement, although EDGAR will continue to operate and accept filings, Corp Fin “will not be able to accelerate the effectiveness of registration statements.” In light of the uncertainty, Corp Fin suggests that “registrants with pending registration or offering statements that are substantially complete, and that have met all statutory requirements to request acceleration of the effective date (including the dissemination of any draft registration statement for the required periods under Securities Act Section 6(e) or the related Division accommodations) or qualification, may want to consider requesting effectiveness or qualification while the Division continues its normal operations.”
Aa in past shutdowns, Corp Fin has posted a series of FAQs, summarized below, primarily addressing companies in the registration process (or contemplating offerings) but potentially caught in the shutdown. There are a couple of FAQs about shareholder proposals and guidance. Corp Fin plans to post updates on operating status on the SEC’s website.
Corp Fin posts sample comment letter on XBRL
Corp Fin has posted a sample comment letter to companies about their XBRL disclosures. I don’t pretend to know or understand a thing about XBRL, much less Inline XBRL, so I won’t even try to elaborate but, for your reading pleasure, here are the comments.
New CDIs on stock buybacks and foreign private issuers
In May, the SEC adopted a proposal intended to modernize and improve disclosure regarding company stock repurchases. One fortunate aspect of the final rules—for domestic companies, that is—was that the new rule did away with the proposed new Form SR for reporting of daily repurchase data by domestic companies and, instead, moved to quarterly reporting of detailed quantitative information on daily repurchase activity, to be filed as exhibits to companies’ periodic reports. But that was not the case for foreign private issuers. The final rules require FPIs that report on FPI forms to disclose daily quantitative repurchase data at the end of every quarter on new Form F-SR, due 45 days after the end of the FPI’s fiscal quarter. Some commenters on the proposal had suggested exempting FPIs that already make repurchase disclosure under home-country rules, but the SEC elected not to do so in light of its view that the detailed disclosure would be beneficial for all investors in companies that conduct repurchases. The SEC noted, however, that, if an FPI’s home country disclosures furnished on Form 6-K satisfy the Form F-SR requirements, it can incorporate those disclosures by reference into its Form F-SR. (See this PubCo post.)
Now, Corp Fin has issued three new CDIs, summarized below, related to new Form F-SR addressing reporting in the absence of repurchases and reporting for the final fiscal quarter.
Corp Fin issues some new CDIs on Rule 10b5-1 plans
On Friday afternoon, Corp Fin issued several new CDIs regarding Rule 10b5-1 plans. As you may recall, in December last year, the SEC adopted new amendments to the rules regarding Rule 10b5-1 plans. These amendments added new conditions to the affirmative defense of Rule 10b5-1(c) designed to address concerns about abuse of the rule by opportunistic trading on the basis of material non-public information. Among other changes, Rule 10b5-1(c)(1) was amended to apply a cooling-off period to persons other than the issuer, impose a good-faith certification requirement on directors and officers, limit the ability of persons other than the issuer to use multiple overlapping Rule 10b5-1 plans, limit the use of single-trade plans by persons other than the issuer to one single-trade plan in any 12-month period, and add a condition that all persons entering into Rule 10b5-1 plans must act in good faith with respect to those plans. In addition, the amendments included requirements for new disclosures regarding (1) companies’ insider trading policies and procedures; (2) director and officer equity compensation awards made close in time to company to disclosure of MNPI; (3) adoption or termination by officers of directors of any 10b5-1 plan or “non-Rule 10b5-1 trading arrangement”; and (4) bona fide gifts of securities on Forms 4 by Section 16 filers and transactions under 10b5-1 plans on Forms 4 and 5. ) (See this PubCo post.)
The new CDIs, summarized below, address calculation of the cooling-off period, overlapping plans involving 401(k) plans, the new Form 4 checkbox and disclosures about adoption and termination of trading arrangements.
In discussions of inflation, SEC staff want the details
According to a review of SEC staff comments by Bloomberg, Corp Fin staff have been weighing in to remind companies about the need to discuss, in SEC filings, the material impact of inflation—and don’t forget the details. No doubt you remember that Item 303 of Reg S-K used to include an express requirement to discuss the impact of inflation and changing prices on net sales, revenues and income from continuing operations, but that provision was eliminated as part of the MD&A modernization project in 2020. (See this PubCo post.) Of course, at that point we hadn’t had any real inflation for years. Then the SEC removed the explicit requirement and what do we have? Inflation, of course—up to 9% in June 2022.
Compliance dates for SEC cybersecurity disclosure rules
As you know, the SEC adopted final rules on cybersecurity disclosure on July 26, with compliance dates tied to publication in the Federal Register. (See this PubCo post.) Those rules were published on August 4 with compliance dates spelled out in the published release.
SEC adopts final rules on cybersecurity disclosure [UPDATED]
[This post revises and updates my earlier post primarily to provide a more detailed discussion of the contents of the adopting release.]
At an open meeting on Wednesday last week, the SEC voted, three to two, to adopt final rules on cybersecurity disclosure. In his statement at the open meeting, Commissioner Jaime Lizárraga shared the stunning statistics that, last year, 83% of companies experienced more than one data breach, with an average cost of in the U.S. of $9.44 million; breaches increased 600% over the last decade and total costs across the U.S. economy could run as high as trillions of dollars per year. Given the ubiquity, frequency and complexity of these threats, in March last year, the SEC proposed cybersecurity disclosure rules intended to help shareholders better understand cybersecurity risks and how companies are managing and responding to them. Although a number of changes to the proposal were made in the final rules in response to objections that the proposal was too prescriptive and could increase companies’ vulnerability to cyberattack, the basic structure remains the same, with requirements for both material incident reporting on Form 8-K and periodic disclosure of material information regarding cybersecurity risk management, strategy and governance. According to SEC Chair Gensler, “[w]hether a company loses a factory in a fire—or millions of files in a cybersecurity incident—it may be material to investors….Currently, many public companies provide cybersecurity disclosure to investors. I think companies and investors alike, however, would benefit if this disclosure were made in a more consistent, comparable, and decision-useful way. Through helping to ensure that companies disclose material cybersecurity information, today’s rules will benefit investors, companies, and the markets connecting them.”
SEC adopts final rules on cybersecurity disclosure
In remarks to the audience at a Financial Times summit earlier this month, Gurbir Grewal, SEC Director of Enforcement, citing a recent poll from Deloitte, observed that over “a third of executives reported that their organization’s accounting and financial data was targeted by cyber adversaries last year.” As threats increase, Grewal maintained, cybersecurity is “foundational to maintaining the integrity of not just our securities markets, but our economy as a whole.” (See this PubCo post.) Similarly, in remarks in January 2022, SEC Chair Gary Gensler suggested that the economic cost of cyberattacks could possibly be in the trillions of dollars, taking many forms, including denials-of-service, malware and ransomware. It’s also a national security issue. He reminded us that “cybersecurity is a team sport,” and that the private sector is often on the front lines. And, in his statement at the SEC open meeting yesterday morning, Commissioner Jaime Lizárraga shared the eye-opening stats that, last year, 83% of companies experienced more than one data breach, with an average cost of in the U.S. of $9.44 million; breaches increased 600% over the last decade. Given the ubiquity, frequency and complexity of these threats, in March last year, the SEC proposed cybersecurity disclosure rules intended to help shareholders better understand cybersecurity risks and how companies are managing and responding to them. At an open meeting yesterday morning, the SEC voted, three to two, to adopt final rules on cybersecurity disclosure. Although a number of changes to the proposal were made in response to comments, the basic structure remains the same in the final rules, with requirements for both material incident reporting on Form 8-K and periodic disclosure of material information regarding cybersecurity risk management, strategy and governance. According to Gensler, “[w]hether a company loses a factory in a fire—or millions of files in a cybersecurity incident—it may be material to investors….Currently, many public companies provide cybersecurity disclosure to investors. I think companies and investors alike, however, would benefit if this disclosure were made in a more consistent, comparable, and decision-useful way. Through helping to ensure that companies disclose material cybersecurity information, today’s rules will benefit investors, companies, and the markets connecting them.”
Corp Fin posts three new CDIs on Rule 10b5-1
Last week, Corp Fin posted (and then deleted and reposted—but that’s another story) three new CDIs regarding the affirmative defense under Rule 10b5-1. As you may recall, in December last year, the SEC adopted new amendments to the rules regarding Rule 10b5-1 plans. These amendments added new conditions to the affirmative defense of Rule 10b5-1(c) designed to address concerns about abuse of the rule by opportunistic trading on the basis of material non-public information. Among other changes, Rule 10b5-1(c)(1) was amended to apply a cooling-off period to persons other than the issuer, impose a good-faith certification requirement on directors and officers, limit the ability of persons other than the issuer to use multiple overlapping Rule 10b5-1 plans, limit the use of single-trade plans by persons other than the issuer to one single-trade plan in any 12-month period, and add a condition that all persons entering into Rule 10b5-1 plans must act in good faith with respect to those plans. In addition, the amendments included requirements for new disclosures regarding (1) companies’ insider trading policies and procedures, and the use of 10b5-1 plans and certain other similar trading arrangements by directors and officers; (2) director and officer equity compensation awards made close in time to company to disclosure of MNPI; and (3) bona fide gifts of securities on Forms 4 by Section 16 filers and transactions under 10b5-1 plans on Forms 4 and 5. (See this PubCo post.) The new CDIs relate to the timing of compliance and the use and termination of multiple plans.
Corp Fin posts a slew of new CDIs on pay versus performance
On Friday afternoon, Corp Fin posted a slew of new CDIs—15 in total—regarding the new pay-versus-performance rule. You may recall that, in August last year, the SEC finally adopted a new rule that will require disclosure of information reflecting the relationship between executive compensation actually paid by a company and the company’s financial performance—a new rule that was originally mandated by Dodd-Frank in 2010. Lots of questions have arisen about implementation of the rule, and SEC representatives let it be known that CDIs on the topic would be forthcoming. (See this post from thecorporatecounsel.net blog.) Not surprisingly, most of the CDIs are about the complicated Pay Versus Performance table and are just as thorny as the rule, so get your Advil ready.
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