TheCorporateCounsel.net

October 4, 2010

Corp Fin Updates Financial Reporting Manual (Again)

On Friday, Corp Fin updated its Financial Reporting Manual for issues related to Regulation S-X Rule 3-09, Rule 3-10, and Rule 3-16, as well as other changes (eg. Topic 1500 of the Manual). The revisions are reflected as of June 30th and aren’t attributable to Dodd-Frank. Corp Fin has been updating the Manual much more frequently than in the past, deciding to do so a little bit at a time rather than major rewrites as in the past.

Dodd-Frank: The SEC Fleshes Out Its October Rulemaking Schedule

On Friday, the SEC listed the specific rulemakings that are planned for October in this schedule. As noted earlier, the schedule includes proposals for say-on-pay and say-on-golden parachutes, as well as disclosure of voting by institutional money managers on executive pay. Proposals regarding compensation committee/advisor independence; mine safety and disclosure relating to resource extraction issuers are not coming until November.

Among other planned rulemakings, October also includes a request for comment on a study regarding reducing the costs of smaller companies complying with Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley (ie. internal controls). The SEC will also establish five new Offices this month: Whistleblowers, Credit Ratings, Investor Advocate, Women and Minority Inclusion and Municipal Securities. Here is testimony before the Senate Banking Committee from SEC Chair Schapiro regarding how the rulemaking is proceeding.

On Friday, the SEC also issued its report on why the market suddenly crashed back in May – as noted in this NY Times article, a single $4 billion trade led to the “flash crash.” Scary…

Holding the Virtual Annual Meeting: Factors to Consider and Practice Pointers

We have posted the transcript for the recent webcast: “Holding the Virtual Annual Meeting: Factors to Consider and Practice Pointers.”

– Broc Romanek