TheCorporateCounsel.net

Spanking brand new. By popular demand, this comprehensive “Management Proposals Handbook” covers the entire terrain – in a nifty chart format! – from SEC requirements for typical proposals to common questions about proxy statement distribution. This one is a real gem – 31 pages of practical guidance – and it’s posted in our “Annual Shareholders’ Meetings” Practice Area.

Whistleblower Hotlines: Still a Vital Tool?

Here’s the intro from this blog by Matt Kelly of Radical Compliance:

Recently the chief compliance officer of a global company asked me: does a company need a telephone-based whistleblower hotline anymore? In our all-technology, all-the-time world, could a company phase out telephone hotlines in favor of a web-only reporting system?

The answer to that question requires a bit of finesse. The short answer is yes: in the purest, technical interpretation of corporate governance law and SEC rules, a company isn’t required to provide a telephone hotline as one reporting option. But you would need bulletproof arguments demonstrating why your organization no longer needs a telephone hotline, and never will in the future.

Indeed, SEC rules don’t prescribe a specific whistleblower procedure. But with the increase in SEC whistleblower awards & related class actions – including a $61 million award proposed in July! – it benefits companies to make internal reporting as easy as possible.

We’ve blogged a number of times on this topic, and there are surveys & loads of other resources in our “Whistleblowers” Practice Area…

More on “The Mentor Blog”

We continue to post new items daily on our blog – “The Mentor Blog” – for TheCorporateCounsel.net members. Members can sign up to get that blog pushed out to them via email whenever there is a new entry by simply inputting their email address on the left side of that blog. Here’s a sampling of entries:

– Confidential Treatment Requests for IPOs: 40% Have Them

– Federal Court Holds Delaware’s Unclaimed Property Estimation Methods Violate the Constitution

– Buybacks: Under Fire

– Unicorns: Highlighting California’s Annual Report Requirement

– Should Whistleblowers Go to Arbitration?

– Liz Dunshee