Nick Grabar

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Late last week – for the first time in 40 years – the SEC announced a settlement of an internal controls case against an issuer arising from its repurchase of its own shares. The SEC found that Andeavor bought back $250 million of stock without first engaging in an adequate process to ensure that the…

On September 23, the SEC voted 3-2 to amend certain of the procedural requirements for the inclusion of shareholder proposals in a company’s proxy statement under Exchange Act Rule 14a-8. The amendments were adopted substantially as proposed in November 2019, except for the so-called “momentum” provision, which would have permitted companies to exclude shareholder proposals…

On August 26, the SEC revised several disclosure requirements applicable to reporting companies. The amendments embrace a “principles-based” approach in the hope that it will elicit more focused and useful disclosures.  They will also require issuers to focus on human capital disclosures and on the organization of risk factor disclosures, and some will have to…

For more than a decade, the SEC has been wrestling with whether and how to regulate the activities of the proxy advisory firms – principally ISS and Glass Lewis – that have come to play such an important role in shareholder voting at U.S. public companies.  On July 22, 2020, the SEC adopted rules and…

The Securities and Exchange Commission held a roundtable on July 9, 2020 on investing in emerging markets.

Participants with a very wide range of perspectives addressed three concentric circles of topics:

  • At the core is the regulatory impasse between the United States and China over the ability of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB)

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On May 21, 2020, the SEC adopted extensive amendments to the rules governing financial disclosures by registrants about businesses they acquire or dispose of. They primarily relate to disclosures required by Rule 3-05 and Article 11 of Regulation S-X in registration statements and periodic reports, and, for the most part, they reduce the burden of…

On March 25, 2020, due to the continuing impact of COVID-19, the SEC issued an order extending its previously-issued conditional relief from certain Exchange Act reporting requirements and proxy delivery requirements.

In particular, the March 25 order provides U.S. public companies with a 45-day extension to file or furnish certain filings otherwise due between March

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Last week the Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Clayton and Commissioners Lee and Peirce each issued statements on climate-related disclosures in SEC filings. The statements were prompted by the concurrent SEC’s proposal to amend the MD&A rules and evidence some debate within the SEC on this topic, which has attracted considerable recent attention among investors,…

Yesterday the Securities and Exchange Commission took two significant actions relating to the MD&A disclosures in annual and quarterly reports of public companies.

First, it proposed amendments to MD&A requirements that would, if adopted, make significant and long-overdue improvements to a central disclosure requirement of the U.S. securities laws. Second, it issued guidance on the…

The following post was originally included as part of our recently published memorandum “Selected Issues for Boards of Directors in 2020”.

Last year at this time, companies and boards were wrestling with the impact of the new revenue recognition standard and the new lease accounting standard. The next big innovation in accounting standards…