TheCorporateCounsel.net

This timing is interesting. Remember the SEC Division of Enforcement’s “Climate and ESG Task Force” focused on identifying material gaps or misstatements in companies’ ESG disclosures? Apparently, that task force is no more. As reported by Bloomberg:

The Securities and Exchange Commission shut down its Enforcement Division’s Climate and ESG Task Force within the past few months, an agency spokesperson told Bloomberg Law Thursday.

The agency launched the group in March 2021 under then-Acting SEC Chair Allison Lee with nearly two dozen staffers, who helped on the task force as they continued other jobs. SEC Chair Gary Gensler continued the group when he arrived at the agency in April 2021. The group went on to help with cases against Bank of New York Mellon Corp., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Brazilian miner Vale SA and others.

That doesn’t mean that enforcement related to ESG misstatements isn’t still high on the Division’s watch list (clearly). The agency’s spokesperson also said that “the strategy has been effective, and the expertise developed by the task force now resides across the Division.”

– Meredith Ervine