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As noted in this blog from “The SEC Institute,” there truly is no reason for companies to be procrastinating when it comes to the FASB’s new revenue recognition standard (we have a ton of memos posted in our “Revenue Recognition” Practice Area). Here’s the blog:

Let’s face it, almost all of us procrastinate! And when there is a good reason to procrastinate, well, that is all the better! One of the big rationales for procrastinating dealing with the new revenue recognition standard was that the FASB was definitely going to make changes to the original ASU (ASU 2014-09). As the Transition Resource Group identified and discussed issues in the new standard it became clear that the FASB would clarify certain issues and improve the standard in other areas. In fact the FASB started four discrete projects to make changes.

Yesterday that rationale came to an end. The FASB released the fourth of the four ASU’s. They are:

– ASU 2015-14 – Revenue from Contracts with Customers (Topic 606): Deferral of the Effective Date – Issued August 2015
– ASU 2016-8 – Revenue Recognition — Principal Versus Agent Considerations (Reporting Revenue Gross Versus Net) – Issued March 2016
– ASU 2016-10 – Revenue Recognition — Identifying Performance Obligations and Licenses – Final Standard Issued in April 2016
– ASU 2016-12 – Revenue Recognition — Narrow-Scope Improvements and Practical Expedients – Issued May 2016

All the core issues are now in the standard as amended! And yes, the TRG and the AICPA’s Industry Task Forces will continue to work on specific issues. You can read about the TRG’s issues.

CEO Removal: How to Do It

Probably the toughest task for a board is to remove a CEO that performs poorly (see this checklist & other resources in our “CEO Succession/CEO Removal” Practice Area). It’s easier – but can still be challenging – to remove a CEO that behaves badly. This new Stanford study delves into that interesting topic (also see this Cooley blog)…

SEC Commissioners: Grundfest Weighs In

Former SEC Commissioner Joe Grundfest recently penned this WSJ op-ed on the saga of trying to get two SEC Commissioner candidates confirmed by the Senate. Here’s an excerpt:

President Obama has nominated Lisa Fairfax, a Democrat, and Hester Peirce, a Republican, to fill two vacancies on the Securities and Exchange Commission. New York Sen. Charles Schumer demands that the nominees promise—in writing—that if the SEC ever considers a rule requiring publicly traded corporations to disclose political contributions, the nominees will support it.

The nominees haven’t done so, and on April 7 Mr. Schumer lambasted them for “fence-sitting” and for feeding him a bunch of “gobbledy gook.” So spurned, Sen. Schumer, joined by fellow Banking Committee Democrats Elizabeth Warren, Robert Menendez and Jeff Merkley, announced that they will oppose the nominees. The confirmation process has now ground to a halt. Are these senators striking a powerful blow for disclosure of campaign-finance reform, or are they merely shooting themselves in the foot? There’s every reason to believe that these senators will end up limping out of the hearing room.

The law is clear that when it comes to adopting a rule, SEC commissioners must be open to persuasion based on public comment. If a commissioner has an “unalterably closed mind”—as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit put it in a 1980 decision—then she can’t participate.

What better evidence is there of an unalterably closed mind than a nominee’s written promise to support a senator’s policy no matter what? Any nominee who agrees to such a demand effectively disqualifies herself from participating in the rule-making that the senator so ardently desires. By demanding the promise, Mr. Schumer and his colleagues destroy her ability to deliver on the promise. It also transforms the nomination process into a scene from the theater of the absurd: “I promise to support a policy position that I won’t be able to vote on because I am making this promise.”

– Broc Romanek