July 9, 2018
Perk Disclosure: SEC’s Enforcement Blasts Company for Poor Drafting Training
You’ll be hearing a lot about the SEC’s Enforcement action against Dow Chemical over poor perk disclosures. As you can learn from the SEC’s order (and memos posted in the “Perks” Practice Area on CompensationStandards.com) – the company was not only fined $1.75 million – but it was ordered to retain a consultant for a period of one year to review its perks policies, controls & training (note that no individuals were charged, just the company). Wow! There were $3 million of perk omissions over four years.
So what can you do? For starters, we have an 82-page chapter on perk disclosure as part of the Lynn, Borges & Romanek’s “Executive Compensation Disclosure Treatise” posted on CompensationStandards.com. The entire Treatise is 1650 pages – and it’s just about pay disclosure! In addition to being posted on CompensationStandards.com, you can order a hard copy.
Then, we’ve had a panel about perk disclosures for 16 straight years as part of our annual “Proxy Disclosure” conference – which is coming up soon: September 25th & 26th in San Diego and also available by video webcast. This upcoming big disclosure conference has nearly 20 panels. Register by August 10th for a reduced rate.
Tomorrow’s Webcast: “The Evolving Compensation Committee”
Tune in tomorrow for the CompensationStandards.com webcast – “The Evolving Compensation Committee” – to hear FW Cook’s Bindu Culas, Semler Brossy’s Blair Jones and Davis Polk’s Kyoko Takahashi Lin discuss how to untangle the complex issues that compensation committees face in exercising their fiduciary duties against a backdrop of increased shareholder activism, potent proxy advisor policies, an active plaintiff’s bar and heightened media scrutiny.
Mandatory Arbitration: Six State Treasurers Say “No”
We’ve blogged a bit (here’s the latest) about whether the SEC would consider mandatory arbitration under SEC Chair Clayton’s reign. This article notes that six state treasurers recently wrote a letter to the SEC Chair requesting that a move to mandatory arbitration not be done…
– Broc Romanek