TheCorporateCounsel.net

August 24, 2018

Wu-Tang Clan: Killah’s C.R.E.A.M. Crypto Craters!

Time for an update on the Wu-Tang Clan’s crypto activities – and I’m afraid the news is bad. Very bad. Remember when I blogged about Ghostface Killah’s planned ICO for his C.R.E.A.M. (Cash Rules Everything Around Me) token? Sadly, this “Digital Music News” story reports that it has, shall we say, “underperformed”:

Back in January, a cryptocurrency company called Cream Capital hoped to raise $30 million through an initial coin offering (ICO). The company was named after the Wu-Tang Clan’s 1993 song, ‘C.R.E.A.M.’, which stands for ‘Cash Rules Everything Around Me’. Wu-Tang’s Ghostface Killah was a founding member of the company, and hoped his involvement with the cryptocurrency would help raise funds during its initial coin offering.

However, it appears as though the ICO hasn’t gone well, as the coin’s value has plunged more than 96% since it launched back in January. The Cream Dividend token initially went on sale back in November of 2017, when coins were sold for as little as $0.02 per coin. The price for the cryptocurrency subsequently spiked in January to a high of $0.12, before riding a downward trending wave. The current value of the coin at the time of writing is just $0.0045, making it a crypto-flop.

So, Ghostface Killah’s C.R.E.A.M. coin has lost 96% of its value. That’s not good – but if it’s any consolation, he’s got a lot of company among much higher-profile cryptocurrencies.

Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance: You Know It Don’t Come Easy. . .

Protiviti recently released its annual “Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Survey”, which reviews companies’ compliance efforts & the costs associated with them. This year’s survey says even after 16 years, this stuff’s still not easy – costs for many companies continue to rise, & the hours commitment continues to grow. Here’s an excerpt with some of the key takeaways:

– Compliance costs continue to rise for many organizations but remain dependent on size, SOX year, filer status and more – Many organizations experienced increases in their SOX compliance costs during their last fiscal year, and those spending $2 million or more grew as well. However, annual compliance costs did decrease from the prior year for certain groups of companies.

– SOX compliance hours have increased significantly – There are likely many factors at play here, including changing organizational structures resulting from ongoing digital transformation efforts, as well as continuing PCAOB inspections of external auditors that are placing increased demands on their clients to perform more rigorous SOX compliance testing and reporting.

Perhaps surprisingly, the survey also says that the use of automated controls testing & process automation remains low – and that implementing these technologies represents a significant opportunity to improve the efficiency of the compliance process.

Sustainability: More On “Will Delaware’s Statute Move the Needle?”

I’ve previously blogged about Delaware’s new sustainability certification statute. This recent blog from Lois Yurow reviews the statute & considers the “why bother?” question. Here’s an excerpt:

So why would a company bother getting a certificate (and paying fees, and assuming a disclosure obligation)?

Every company is at liberty now, certificate or no certificate, to voluntarily issue a sustainability report. Indeed, 85% of the Fortune 500 published a sustainability report in 2017. No doubt those reports represent a genuine commitment on the part of the issuing companies. Still, it pays to consider who chooses what a given company reports on: what goals it adopts, what metrics it uses to gauge progress, who measures that progress, and what specific information will be shared. With voluntary reporting, companies have almost infinite flexibility.

Under the Certification Act, reporting entities will need to disclose “objective and factual” performance results, and each entity’s governing body will be required to specifically address those results, offering its view of whether they represent success. By imposing these rules, the statute responds to the ever lingering concern that at least some sustainability reports are as much about marketing as they are about real change. The public in general, and investors in particular, may find the Certification Act’s data-heavy reports more valuable.

We’ll see how this plays out – I guess I’m still in the “corporate equivalent of buying a Subaru” camp when it comes to this statute, but this is the first piece I’ve seen that articulates what might be in it for companies that are looking to do more than just signal their virtue.

John Jenkins