Turning the page on the calendar to 2026 inevitably prompts me to look ahead to what will undoubtedly be a very active year in our space, with the SEC sure to ramp up its rulemaking and interpretive efforts to address an ambitious agenda that has been covered in this blog over the course of 2025. Keeping in mind that rulemaking is a very time-consuming and labor-intensive process, here are my top five predictions as to what we might see coming down the pike in terms of rulemaking over the next few weeks and months:

1. As Meredith discussed last week, the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act will require Section 16(a) reports of officers and directors of foreign private issuers (but not ten percent owners) effective March 18, 2026. Given a number of complications that are noted in Meredith’s blog, the Commission may need to act quickly to adopt rules to facilitate the implementation of this legislation.

2. As I noted in the blog back in September, President Trump directed the SEC to consider ending quarterly reporting in a Truth Social post, and Chairman Atkins subsequently indicated that consideration of a proposal was a priority for the Commission. A good deal of the underlying work on this topic was done during the first Trump Administration, including a request for comment and a roundtable, so it is foreseeable that a proposed rule and form amendments could be imminent on these changes.

3. As I noted in the blog last month, the White House issued an Executive Order directing the Chairman of the SEC, the Chairman of the FTC and the Secretary of Labor to take a number of rulemaking and investigative actions with respect to proxy advisory firms. Given that these actions have been prioritized by the Administration, it may be the case that the Commission will seek to act quickly on this front, particularly given that work has undoubtedly already been undertaken to address the quagmire that currently exists with the SEC’s rules on this topic.

4. As a conservative estimate, I would say that it will typically take about six to nine months to go from proposing release to adopting release on any rulemaking initiative, so if the Commission wants to revise the executive compensation disclosure requirements, revisit Rule 14a-8 or otherwise make changes to proxy disclosure requirements in time for the 2027 proxy season, we should expect to see proposing releases from the Commission very soon. Last June, the SEC held a roundtable on executive compensation disclosure requirements and solicited comments, so it can be expected that preliminary work has been ongoing with this initiative.

5. Among the top priorities articulated by Chairman Atkins is capital-raising, and the Chairman and other Commissioners have discussed a wide range of potential regulatory changes to address this initiative. There has been a bit of a “chicken and the egg” conundrum in that Congress has also been working on some of these initiatives, but at some point the SEC can’t wait around for Congress to act and must move forward with its own proposals. As the political winds in Washington are shifting to distinctly variable, this may be an issue that the SEC and the Administration will want to showcase in the coming months leading up to mid-term elections. All of these signs point toward proposing releases in the near term.

Of course, you should take all my predictions here with a grain of salt. For instance, back in September, I was sure that the Baltimore Ravens would win the Super Bowl this year. I could not have been more wrong about that!

– Dave Lynn