TheCorporateCounsel.net

October 15, 2008

Course Materials Now Available

You are now able to obtain – and print out – the course materials related to our next week’s Conferences: “Tackling Your 2009 Compensation Disclosures: The 3rd Annual Proxy Disclosure Conference” & “5th Annual Executive Compensation Conference.” If you want to print just the key materials for each conference, we have bundled them together into one pdf here: “3rd Annual Printable Set” – and “5th Annual Printable Set.”

Note that you will need your Conference ID and password to access the course materials (if you’ll be in New Orleans, a set will be handed out to you). It’s not too late to register!

Instructions for Those Watching Online Next Week: Come to the home page on the day of the Conference and click the prominent link that will be posted that day. Watch the Conference live by clicking a video link that will be on the Conference page that matches the type of player installed on your computer (ie. Windows Media Player or Flash) and the speed of the connection that you have. Panels will be archived a day after they are shown live.

Short Sale Tuesday

Yesterday, the SEC issued three separate releases taking action on short sale rules. All of these rule changes are effective this Friday, October 17. The changes include:

1. In Release 34-58773, the SEC adopted Rule 204T of Regulation SHO as an “interim final temporary rule” (I think that is a whole new flavor of rule). Rule 204T was first adopted in a September 17 Emergency Order and was set to expire on Friday, October 17. Now, a revised version Rule 204T will be effective until July 31, 2009, and the SEC will consider comments on the rule and respond to those comments “in a subsequent release.” The new version of Rule 204T includes some tweaks from the version adopted in the September 17 Emergency Order to address operational and technical concerns. The rule generally requires that securities be purchased or borrowed to close out any fail to deliver position in an equity security by no later than the beginning of regular trading hours on the settlement day following the date on which the fail to deliver position occurred, as a means for discouraging potentially abusive “naked” short selling.

2. In Release 34-58774, the SEC adopted Exchange Act Rule 10b-21, the naked short selling antifraud rule. This rule is actually being adopted in the “normal” way – it was proposed back in March and comment was solicited on the rule. In the September 17 Emergency Order, the SEC had adopted Rule 10b-21, but only through this Friday. New Rule 10b-21 is aimed specifically at short sellers (including broker-dealers acting for their own accounts) “who deceive specified persons, such as a broker or dealer, about their intention or ability to deliver securities in time for settlement and that fail to deliver securities by settlement date.” Such deception could include lying to a broker about the source of the borrowable securities under the locate requirement of Regulation SHO, or lying about whether the short seller owns the securities to be sold short.

3. In Release 34-58775, the SEC adopted previously proposed changes that eliminate the options market maker exception to the close-out requirement of Regulation SHO. With these amendments, fails to deliver in threshold securities resulting from hedging activities by options market makers will no longer be excepted from Regulation SHO’s close-out requirement. In the September 17 Emergency Order, the SEC had adopted and made immediately effective the elimination of the options market maker exception to Regulation SHO’s close-out requirement, which was also set to expire this Friday. The Release also provides some interpretive guidance on activities that constitute bona fide market making activities.

These rule changes are by and large targeted at naked short selling, and may finally go a long way toward stamping out the shady side of the short sale business. However, these changes may not be the last word on short selling regulation – calls for reviving the uptick rule will continue, as will perhaps the overall mistrust of short selling that the SEC has contributed to with its emergency short sale ban. Also, the SEC should be publishing interim final rules in the next day or so to implement the new Form SH filing requirement (for the SEC’s eyes only) on a permanent basis.

What’s Next for the SEC’s Emergency Actions?

With the markets’ big comeback on Monday and the rally cries of “capitulation” emerging, is the SEC going to ban long purchases next? I think not, but that would make about as much sense as banning short sales, in my opinion. What the SEC could do now is adopt some interim final temporary rule changes to continue the relaxation of the Rule 10b-18 volume and timing conditions to facilitate long purchasers by issuers. The timing of the SEC’s Emergency Order relaxing the 10b-18 requirements was not particularly good, since many issuers were in possession of material nonpublic information as a result of being so close to the end of the quarter, and thus had concerns about implementing any new repurchase plans or doing any sort of one-off repurchases. The potential benefits of encouraging issuers into the market to support their shares could actually be realized soon, as earnings get announced and issuers get back into windows where they could be in a position to repurchase their own securities.

– Dave Lynn