TheCorporateCounsel.net

On Wednesday, the NYSE posted these proposed Section 303A rule changes regarding director independence, disclosure mechanics and other clean-up changes. [Oddly, the proposal states that the changes were approved by the NYSE board way back on April 7th. Typo?]

SEC Filing Fees Reduced

On Wednesday, the SEC released Fee Rate Advisory #5, which reduces the fees paid to register securities by 9.1% effective yesterday, November 27th. On November 22nd, President Bush signed H.R. 2862, the appropriations bill that includes funding for the SEC and the reduced rates became effective five days later – so that the fees due now are $107.00 per million registered.

Revised Executive Pay Settlement Approved in Fairchild Case

Also on Wednesday, Delaware Vice Chancellor Strine approved Fairchild’s revised settlement of a shareholder lawsuit alleging that the company’s Chairman and CEO received excessive compensation. The terms of this revised settlement were the subject of a blog from last month.

You know overpaid executives has become a mainstream topic when “Jeopardy” has a category entitled “Forbes Top Executive Salaries.” Yes, an episode of Jeopardy that I saw over the weekend included this category. And I am proud to say I did quite well on it! But not so well in the other categories – either that show has gotten tougher in my old age or I am fading…

The Blog about Wall Street? Really?

Yesterday, the NY Times ran a brief article about a one-month old blog that allegedly gives the inside scoop on Wall Street. I ran a “Whois” search on who owns the blog’s URL and came up with the Brownstone Media Group. Then, I googled “Brownstone Media Group” and came up with nothing but this blog about renovating properties in Brooklyn.

Although there is sparse contact information on either blog, the renovation blog does include an “advertisement” for the new Wall Street blog. So some sort of connection seems to exist between the two. This took all of two minutes to uncover. Maybe I don’t know enough about Wall Street – but Brownstone doesn’t strike me as part of the Wall Street establishment.

Think the NY Times was had? The article says the blog is run by an anonymous 30-something banker – but all of the blog entries are merely snippets or commentary regarding articles run in mainstream business publications. There is nothing in the way of real inside scoop or any other indicia that shows the blogger has any more Wall Street experience than Barney Rubble. I could be wrong but me thinks this is some sort of Web hijinks…