TheCorporateCounsel.net

Yesterday, the SEC announced that it was reopening the comment period for the Dodd Frank-mandated pay-for-performance disclosure rules that the agency proposed way back in 2015. Here’s the 29-page reopening release & the 2-page fact sheet.  This excerpt from the fact sheet summarizes the reasons for the SEC’s decision to reopen comments as well as some changes to the initial proposal that are being contemplated:

The Commission received numerous comment letters on the 2015 proposing release. In light of the regulatory and market developments since 2015, the Commission is providing the public the opportunity to submit additional comments on the 2015 proposal, and to address the additional requirements the Commission is considering in the reopening release issued today. These additional requirements include, among other things:

– Whether registrants should be required to disclose additional performance measures beyond total shareholder return;

– Whether, if required, pre-tax net income and net income would be useful additional financial measures;

– Whether registrants should be required to disclose the measure that in the registrant’s assessment represents the most important performance measure used by the registrant to link compensation actually paid during the fiscal year to company performance (which is called the “Company-Selected Measure”); and

– Whether registrants should also be required to disclose a tabular list of a registrant’s five most important performance measures used to determine compensation actually paid.

Commissioner Peirce issued a brief dissenting statement in which she contended that “the additional requirements raised in this release go well beyond the statutory mandate of Section 953(a), are not responsive to the comment file, and do not seem warranted in light of current executive compensation practices related to company performance.”  Commissioner Lee weighed in with a supporting statement and Commissioner Crenshaw provided one as well.

The reopened comment period will expire 30 days after publication of the release in the Federal Register.  However, the SEC hasn’t exactly been rocketing into print with its recent rule proposals – the10b5-1 & buybacks proposals still haven’t been published – so it’s possible that the reopened comment period actually may be quite a bit longer than that.

– John Jenkins