SEC Guidance

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On Tuesday, December 27, 2016, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in Bandimere v. S.E.C., found that the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (“SEC”) use of administrative law judges (“ALJs”) violated the U.S. Constitution.  While the court’s opinion relies on a somewhat arcane question of administrative law—whether the hiring of SEC ALJs violated the Appointments Clause—its decision to set aside an SEC order imposing sanctions for securities laws violations raises significant questions about future SEC claims brought before ALJs rather than in federal courts, as well as prior adjudications.  With the D.C. Circuit currently considering whether to grant rehearing en banc on its recent holding that these same SEC proceedings were constitutional, the Tenth Circuit’s decision is sure to draw considerable scrutiny in the months ahead and may well give rise to Supreme Court review of the issue.
Continue Reading Appellate Courts Split Over Constitutionality of SEC Administrative Proceedings

The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision this week in Salman v. United States, No. 15-268, 580 U.S. __ (Dec. 6, 2016), clarified what constitutes a “personal benefit” for purposes of insider trading liability.  In its first merits ruling in an insider trading case in two decades, the Court affirmed the Ninth Circuit’s holding that the personal benefit requirement may be met when an inside tipper simply gifts confidential information to a trading relative or friend.  In so holding, the Supreme Court significantly narrowed a key aspect of the Second Circuit’s landmark insider trading decision in United States v. Newman, which had required prosecutors to prove that the tipper received something “of a pecuniary or similarly valuable nature”—a more difficult standard to meet.

Before Newman was decided, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York had prioritized insider trading prosecutions, obtaining dozens of convictions and over a billion dollars in fines since 2009.  After Newman, however, prosecutors were forced to dismiss several indictments, and some commentators wondered what the future held for insider trading prosecutions.  The Supreme Court’s recent decision should reduce that uncertainty and may bring a renewed focus on insider trading investigations.
Continue Reading Supreme Court Clarifies Insider Trading Liability for Confidential Tips

In recent years, when pursuing corporations and their officers for violations of the U.S. securities laws, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) Division of Enforcement has increasingly brought its claims to the SEC’s in-house administrative law judges (ALJs) rather than the federal civil courts.  In fact, last year, over 90% of the SEC’s actions against public companies were brought to the SEC’s ALJs—whereas five years ago, only 33% of those cases were brought as ALJ proceedings.  The credit for this remarkable increase in ALJ proceedings belongs in large part to the 2010 Dodd–Frank Act,[1] which expanded the ALJs’ jurisdiction and authorized new penalties that ALJs could impose, making it unnecessary for the SEC to bring many claims in civil courts.
Continue Reading Changes and Challenges in the SEC’s ALJ Proceedings

A settlement on July 12, 2016 by the DOJ with ValueAct for violations of the HSR Act’s notification requirements and an interpretation of the Exchange Act’s beneficial ownership reporting rules posted by the SEC staff on July 14, 2016 combine to provide new guidance that will have an immediate impact on shareholder activism and engagement.
Continue Reading New Guidance on the Impact of SEC Beneficial Ownership Reporting and HSR Act Notification Regimes on Shareholder Activism and Engagement

On May 17, 2016, the Division of Corporation Finance of the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) released new and updated Compliance and Disclosure Interpretations (“C&DIs”) on the use of non-GAAP financial measures (“NGFMs”).  The release of the C&DIs follows a series of recent speeches by SEC Chair Mary Jo White, Chief Accountant James Schnurr and other staff that expressed concerns over prevalent and liberal use of NGFMs.  The C&DIs signal a tightening of the SEC’s policy toward NGFMs and renewed SEC focus on their use.
Continue Reading SEC Releases New Guidance on Non-GAAP Financial Measures

The practice of reporting non-GAAP earnings is back on the SEC’s radar, highlighted in recent speeches by SEC Chair Mary Jo White (see here) and SEC Chief Accountant James Schnurr (see here).  A series of news articles focusing on the increasing number of companies that report non-GAAP earnings (often confusingly called “pro forma” earnings) and the widening gap between these companies’ reported GAAP and non-GAAP earnings have also shed negative light on using NGFMs (see, e.g., here (paywall), here (paywall) and here).
Continue Reading Non-GAAP: The Pendulum Swings Back

The SEC stepped back into the proxy access arena on February 12, 2016, with a volley of 18 no-action letters on a single day that sharply reduced uncertainty about an important tactical point.

At issue was the circumstances under which a company with an existing proxy access bylaw can exclude a shareholder proxy access proposal based on “substantial implementation” under Rule 14a-8(i)(10).  Of the 18 companies, 14 adopted a bylaw after receiving a shareholder proxy access proposal for the 2016 proxy statement, and then sought to exclude the shareholder proposal.  That tactic was tried only once in 2015, by General Electric; there, the sole distinction between the adopted bylaw and the proposal was that the adopted bylaw imposed a limit (20) on the number of shareholders who may form a group, while the shareholder proposal simply referred to “a group of shareholders,” and the SEC granted no-action relief.
Continue Reading Proxy Access: The SEC Re-enters the Arena

In December 2015, President Obama signed into law the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (the “FAST Act”), which, among other legislation in its 1300+ pages, includes several bills designed to facilitate the offer and sale of securities. We believe that not only will these new provisions facilitate offerings by so-called emerging growth companies (“EGCs,” a category of issuer established by the JOBS Act in 2012), but that the SEC, using its rulemaking authority, may and should expand some of these accommodations to a much broader set of issuers, offerings and forms. The impact of this proposed expansion would, inter alia, make these changes significant for WKSI issuers and the use of the SEC’s M&A forms.  We set forth the arguments for extension of the scope of these accommodations in the linked comment letter, which we authored last week on behalf of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (“SIFMA”) in response to the SEC’s FAST Act-related interim final rules and request for comment dated January 19, 2016.
Continue Reading Cleary Gottlieb and SIFMA Push for Broader Based Reform by SEC of Offering Process and Disclosure

After several years that seemed defined by turmoil and uncertainty, 2015 delivered some unexpected and much-needed clarity for corporate directors on issues such as proxy access, compensation disclosure, investor expectations regarding board composition, certain director and financial advisor conflicts of interest, and audit committee processes and related disclosure. The past year also saw corporations adopting…