TheCorporateCounsel.net

Many companies have been trying to come to grips with the business implications of complying with President Biden’s vaccine mandates. For public companies, those implications may well include disclosure of the potential material effects of those mandates in Exchange Act reports and Securities Act registration statements.

If you’re working on these issues, take a peek at this recent Bass Berry blog, which provides several examples of disclosures addressing issues surrounding vaccine mandates in the MD&A and Risk Factors sections and in forward-looking statements disclaimers. Here’s a sample pulled from one company’s MD&A discussion:

“Additionally, in September 2021 the President of the United States signed an executive order, and related guidance was published that, together, require certain COVID-19 precautions for federal contractors and their subcontractors, including mandatory COVID-19 vaccines for employees (subject to medical and religious exemptions). We are classified as a federal contractor due to a number of our agreements. In October 2021, we announced to our U.S. employees that the federal vaccine mandate would require all of our U.S. employees (subject to the exemptions described above) to be vaccinated by December 8, 2021. We continue to evaluate the potential impact of this executive order on our business. As a result of the federal vaccine mandate, we may experience constraints on our workforce and the workforce of our supply chain, which could require us to adapt our operations.”

By the way, if you’re looking for more info on all of the twists & turns surrounding employer testing and vaccination mandates, check out our “COVID-19 Issues” Practice Area.

– John Jenkins