May 5, 2014
Conflict Minerals: SEC Issues Partial Stay of Rule
On Friday, the SEC issued an order of partial stay of its conflict minerals rule (for those portions of the rule that the appellate court held violates the 1st Amendment). Since Corp Fin’s guidance from earlier in the week already gave companies flexibility to not provide disclosure that arguably would violate the 1st Amendment, this formal action by the Commissioners doesn’t add anything new. Perhaps this order and Corp Fin’s guidance were originally supposed to come out at the same time – but then this Commission order was held up because they knew NAM and the other petitioners were going to file a motion for a full stay – which they did on Thursday – and the SEC’s order denies this motion by granting only a partial stay.
This doesn’t mean the battle with NAM, et al is over as they are still fighting this in court with this new emergency motion for stay, looking for a May 26th ruling by the court – as noted in this Akin Gump blog…
1 Cool Thing About Amazon’s ’14 Proxy Statement
Amazon’s 2014 proxy statement is old-fashioned – only 25 pages long and few charts & graphics. Here is an 80-second video about it:
More on our “Proxy Season Blog”
We continue to post new items regularly on our “Proxy Season Blog” for TheCorporateCounsel.net members. Members can sign up to get that blog pushed out to them via email whenever there is a new entry by simply inputting their email address on the left side of that blog. Here are some of the latest entries:
– CEO-CFO Certifications: Should Corp Fin Staffers Review Them?
– Shareholder Proposals: Cash Awards for Best Proxy Advisor
– Shareholder Proposals: Stats for This Proxy Season
– Sustainability: SASB & IIRC Agree to Disclosure Standards
– MD&A: Don’t Forget Material Trends and Uncertainties
– Statements in Opposition: Use of Bullets
– Broc Romanek