TheCorporateCounsel.net

Although pay ratio didn’t seem to initially capture the imagination of journalists, there has been a wave of local reporting about the pay ratios at specific companies over the past week. Here’s some of the articles about how pay levels – particularly pay ratios – look this year, based on this season’s proxy statements (Mark Borges, Barbara Baksa & I are quoted in the first piece):

1. SF Chronicle’s “Yes, median pay at Facebook really is about $240,000 a year”
2. Time.com’s “This CEO Makes 900 Times More Than His Typical Employee”
3. Kansas City Star’s “How many years would you have to work to earn one year of your CEO’s pay? 63? 96?”
4. Chicago Tribune’s “The boss makes how much? Illinois companies reveal CEO-to-worker pay ratio”
5. Boston Business Journal’s “At TJ Maxx parent, the CEO’s pay was 1,500 times higher than the median employee’s”
6. Washington Post’s “Looking for a bigger salary? These are the companies with the highest median pay”
7. Milwaukee BizTimes’ “CEO pay ratio rule provides new view of executive compensation”
8. Bloomberg’s “CEO-to-Worker Pay Reports Show Wildly Divergent Ratios”
9. Financial Times’ “Pay Ratios: Apple, Pears & Bananas”
10. Bloomberg’s “First Data CEO Pay Ratio is 2,028 Times the Median Worker’s”
11. WSJ’s “Does Verizon Really Pay the Typical Worker 60% More Than AT&T?”
12. Vox’s “How does a company’s CEO pay compare to its workers’? Now you can find out”
13. Bloomberg’s “Less Is More for Companies Reporting CEO-to-Worker Pay Gap”

Yes, Edgar Is Still Broken (& We’re Not Being Told About It)

Sorry, but until the problem is fixed, I’m going to keep blogging about how the SEC’s Edgar continues to have problems (here’s a recent one) – and how the SEC isn’t telling us about it when it does. My hope is that by continuing to highlight the problems, the SEC will at least set up some sort of communication vehicle (a blog perhaps?) where it can inform the general public when Edgar is down (and when it’s back up). Here’s a note that I received from a member a few days ago:

Due to the volume of filings being received by the EDGAR system, the SEC confirmed that they are experiencing delays with filings disseminating. Filings are being accepted and acceptance notifications are returning. Please be assured that this is an SEC issue and the delay in posting does not alter the date/time of a live acceptance.

By the way, Edgar was having problems again this morning. You could make filings but could not access them on sec.gov…

A Tool to Propel Climate Change Disclosure

As this Davis Polk blog notes, the Financial Stability Board’s “Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosure” has launched the “TCFD Knowledge Hub.” The Hub currently contains 300 different documents or other resources organized by the four thematically related areas for disclosure…

Speaking of databases, the SEC recently launched “SALI” (“SEC Action Lookup for Individuals”) so that anyone can research whether the person trying to sell them investments has a judgment or order entered against them in an enforcement action…

– Broc Romanek