Posts Tagged ‘disclosure’
SEC Warning Shot on Climate Disclosure
The acting head of the Securities and Exchange Commission said today that agency staff will start paying more attention to companies’ climate change disclosures, as a prelude to the SEC updating its original climate change guidance now 11 years old. Allison Herren Lee, acting chair since the Biden Administration took office in January, released her…
Read MoreDigging Into Diversity Disclosures
The other week we had a post on what companies are saying about ethics and corporate culture in the new human capital disclosures now required in annual reports. Today I want to circle back to another subset of that information: what companies are saying about their diversity and inclusion efforts. Diversity disclosures have been on…
Read MoreBracing for More Corporate Disclosure
The Extractive Payments Rule adopted by the SEC last week was notable because all five commissioners published explanatory statements along with their votes. Those statements, in turn, are notable for their dueling messages about business conduct and what counts as material information for investors under federal securities law. Compliance officers should give this conflict some…
Read MoreMore on Biden, Compliance, and 2021
Today we pivot back to the incoming Biden Administration and what corporate compliance officers should anticipate as we all plan budgets and priorities for 2021. We have more insight now into who might lead important regulatory agencies under President Biden, and into what policy goals or enforcement efforts a Biden Administration would be able to…
Read MoreFiat’s Lessons in Audits, Disclosure
Sometimes an enforcement action cuts across numerous branches of governance failure, to offer lessons for all manner of risk assurance professionals. Such a thing happened last week, when Fiat Chrysler agreed to pay $9.5 million to settle charges that it wasn’t honest with investors about an investigation into auto-emissions cheating devices. What we have, according…
Read MoreSEC Talks Covid Disclosures
Just in time for the end of second quarter, the Securities and Exchange Commission has published another dollop of guidance about financial disclosures companies should keep in mind as they navigate Covid-19. The statement came Tuesday from chief accountant Sagar Teotia. It’s the latest in a series of pronouncements SEC officials have made since early…
Read MoreSEC Proposes Disclosure Reforms
The Securities and Exchange Commission has proposed new rules meant to simplify corporate financial disclosure, and also fired off a piece of guidance about how companies should approach non-financial metrics they might want to include in securities filings. The proposed rules weren’t exactly a surprise; the SEC has long talked about wanting to streamline the…
Read MoreThoughts on Climate Change Disclosure
Am I imagining things, or have people suddenly turned up the heat on corporate disclosure of climate change issues? Just today, for example, business and political leaders at Davos (always a leading source of hot air) announced a new framework for corporations to report sustainability metrics according to the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals. Climate change…
Read MoreInternal Control and Reg FD Fails
The Securities and Exchange Commission has fined a Florida pharmaceutical firm $200,000 for violating Regulation Fair Disclosure — an offense we don’t see too often in compliance land, and therefore offers a good glimpse into the control failures that might lead to this sort of trouble. The company, TherapeuticsMD, develops hormone therapies to help with…
Read MoreDiscrepancies in Corporate Disclosure
Several weeks ago we had an update here about the SEC’s idea to relax quarterly reporting rules, perhaps in favor of letting companies disclose more via their earnings release. Today let’s explore two practical challenges with that notion: companies can omit unwelcome numbers in their earnings releases, and change what those numbers are by the…
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