TheCorporateCounsel.net

September 13, 2016

SEC’s Filing Fees: Going Up 15% for Fiscal Year 2017!

While I was on vaca, the SEC issued this fee advisory that sets the filing fee rates for registration statements for 2017. Right now, the filing fee rate for Securities Act registration statements is $100.70 per million (the same rate applies under Sections 13(e) and 14(g)). Under the SEC’s new order, this rate will go up to $115.90 per million, a 15% hike. This offsets last year’s 13% drop.

As noted in the SEC’s order, the new fees will go into effect on October 1st like the last four years (as mandated by Dodd-Frank) – which is a departure from years before that when the new rate didn’t become effective until five days after the date of enactment of the SEC’s appropriation for the new year – which often was delayed well beyond the October 1st start of the government’s fiscal year as Congress & the President battled over the government’s budget.

The New “Investor Forum”

This blog by Francis Byrd described the essence of the new “Investors’ Exchange”:

An anticipated autumn announcement, reported in today’s FT, by a coalition of forty institutional investors – including BlackRock, the Wellcome Trust and Allianz Global Investors – amongst others may create a powerful opportunity for these top investors to manage their individual clout in a collective manner on ESG issues.

What makes this collaborative so different, you might say, from ICGN (or CII in the United States) or other regional groups of investors in Europe or Asia with ESG concerns? The primary difference, according the FT story, is that this collective will be exempt from restrictions limiting groupings of large investors from taking or indicating that they might take certain and specific actions in concert. For example, one could envision these 40 institutional investors issuing a statement of concern regarding executive compensation or perhaps on a proposed transaction, at a portfolio company, standing against the board’s recommendation, without running afoul of UK market rules designed to limit stock manipulation and insider trading by large shareholders working in concert.

While the FT story does not delineate the specific issues that the group of 40 would be able to act in concert on, it is likely to mirror the issues listed in the UK Investor Forum’s Collective Engagement Framework (ESG issues such as CEO compensation, CEO and independent director succession, strategy and performance, capital management, reporting and communications). The UK Investor Forum’s collective action plan would also allow for the participation of U.S. and foreign institutional investors. It must be noted that the Investor Forum’s Collective Engagement Framework was informed by consultation and collaboration between the largest UK corporate issuers, the biggest UK institutional investors and leading UK corporate lawyers.

Looks like Ralph Nadar is putting on a conference here in DC about giving power to the people. It includes some shareholder & whistleblower stuff – with Bob Monks & Jack Bogle, etc. speaking…

More on “The Mentor Blog”

We continue to post new items daily on our blog – “The Mentor 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:

– Issuing Shares Via Blockchain: Delaware Poised to Act
– Describing an Officer’s Duties 101
– Data Privacy: More Federal Agencies Join Enforcement Bandwagon
– Stats: Controlled Companies
– How Law Firms Should Strengthen Their Cybersecurity

Broc Romanek