Broc Romanek is Editor of CorporateAffairs.tv, TheCorporateCounsel.net, CompensationStandards.com & DealLawyers.com. He also serves as Editor for these print newsletters: Deal Lawyers; Compensation Standards & the Corporate Governance Advisor. He is Commissioner of TheCorporateCounsel.net's "Blue Justice League" & curator of its "Deal Cube Museum."
Dave just completed a Special Supplement to the Jan-Feb ‘09 issue of The Corporate Executive. Since we expect many will be borrowing extensively from Dave’s excellent, up-to-the-moment model disclosures – inserting them into current drafts of proxy statements – we have posted the issue so that ’09 renewers can access the issue now (the full issue, including the Supplement, will be mailed to current ’09 subscribers later this week).
Renew Now: Those that renewed for ’09 received a link to the Supplement yesterday with instructions on how to access it; if you haven’t renewed yet, renew now to receive it immediately.
Try a No-Risk Trial Now: To have this Special Supplement rushed to you via email so you receive it today, try a no-risk trial for ’09 now – as the Supplement includes pieces on:
– Timely “Best Practice” Disclosures for Your Compensation Discussion and Analysis
– Implementing “Hold Through Retirement” for Equity Awards
– Our Hold-Through-Retirement Policy
– Revisiting Perquisites
– Reassessment of Our Perquisites
– Making the Most of Clawback Provisions
– Revisiting our Compensation Recovery Policy
– Evaluating the Need for Pensions and SERPs
– Our Review and Analysis of Pensions and SERPs
– Tax Implications
– Deductibility of Compensation for Tax Purposes
TARP’s Special Inspector General: Time for Disclosure
As noted in this Washington Post article, TARP’s Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky reportedly will request that each of the 300-plus companies receiving TARP funds provide disclosure as to how they have used those funds. These companies will also be requested to describe any oversight measures taken to comply with the newly revised executive compensation limitations (they were tweaked back on January 16th – too much going on to keep current on this blog!). The companies will have 30 days to respond – and they can be subpoenaed if they fail to comply.
This is not surprising given that it follows a similar disclosure deal that Barofsky cut with Citi and the automakers earlier this month when they got funds, limited attempts from banking regulators to wrestle disclosure from companies. More importantly from a political perspective, it follows two scathing reports from TARP’s watchdog about how the funds aren’t being tracked by Treasury, which led to questions from Congress – and an Obama representative responded last week two weeks ago with this letter to Congress promising more transparency in the TARP process.
– What is the goal of your board-shareowner communications paper?
– What type of comments did you receive on the draft? What changes were made?
– Which board-shareholder communication model do you think is the most feasible in the near-term?
– What about the long-term?
Last week, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the First Circuit issued its highly-anticipated decision regarding work papers and privilege in US v. Textron. We have posted the decision and related memos in our “Attorney-Client Privilege” Practice Area.
Here are some thoughts from Stan Keller of Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge:
The decision involves whether Textron’s tax accrual workpapers were
protected from discovery from the IRS as work product. From a lawyer’s perspective, the importance of the decision is whether work product protection was waived as a result of disclosure of the workpapers to the auditors.
The First Circuit decision may amount to an illusory victory for Textron with mischievous consequences. The Court holds that the tax accrual workpapers are entitled to work product protection, giving a broad reading to the requirement that they be prepared in connection with litigation, and that sharing them with the auditor does not automatically constitute a waive. So far so good.
However, the court then reasons that the auditor could be a conduit for the workpapers or their substance being turned over to an adversary, there being no auditor’s privilege and thus the auditor’s workpapers are subject to discovery, with the result that the work product protection could be waived. The case was remanded to the District Court to consider this further.
Couple this limitation with the audit documentation requirements of AS #3 and you have illusory work product protection.
Corp Fin Issues Updated Interpretations for Going Private Transactions and ’33 Act Rules
Close enough to getting them out by the end of the year as promised, Corp Fin issued two sets of new Compliance & Disclosure Interpretations yesterday – a ’33 Act set and a “going private” transaction set.
The ’33 Act set includes new interps as well as revised interps that were published just a few months ago. The going private set is the first update in that area since ’01. The bracketed date following each interp in both sets is the latest date of publication or revision.
More Regulatory Reform Ideas
Last week, as noted in this press release, the President’s Working Group on Finanical Markets issued two reports on the hedge fund industry: this report from the Asset Manager’s Committee and this report from the Investors’ Committee. The reports lay out best practices and recommendations for the hedge fund industry. We have been posting recommendations for reform of the financial regulatory structure in our “Regulatory Reform” Practice Area. By the way, here is Obama’s “American Reinvestment & Recovery Plan.”
The Latest Developments: Your Upcoming Proxy Disclosures—What You Need to Do Now!
Given the heightened importance of executive pay right now – and the high likelihood that Congress will pass “say-on-pay” legislation, this year’s compensation disclosures will receive unprecedented scruntiny by investors, employees, customers and the media.
Act Now: As all memberships are on a calendar-year basis, you will not be able to access these webcasts if you haven’t renewed for ’09 – so please renew today. If you aren’t a member, try a no-risk trial for ’09.
In its first accomodation for the current market environment, the NYSE filed a rule change (see the press release) with the SEC last week that would temporarily reduce the average market capitalization required under Section 802.01B of the NYSE’s Listed Company Manual from $25 million to $15 million.
Although the rule change has not been published by the SEC, the rule change will be effective upon filing – if the SEC waives a 30-day operative delay, which it is expected to do. This temporary reduction would apply through April 22nd (although the NYSE could extend the period if market conditions remain the same). We will be posting memos in our “Delisting” Practice Area.
There are quite a few NYSE companies for which this will be an important accommodation. Note that this approach by the NYSE is different than Nasdaq’s approach. As I understand it, the NYSE is not willing to totally waive or suspend listing standards as has been Nasdaq’s practice. Rather, the NYSE is looking to take this step of temporarily lowering the market cap standard.
Nasdaq Companies: Even Accommodations Don’t Help
If you do a recent search of Form 8-Ks for Nasdaq companies that use the term “delisting,” you will see that there are quite a lot of Nasdaq companies that are voluntarily delisting due to non-compliance (eg. Neopharm). These companies don’t appear to be taking the step of appealing a delisting notification, probably because there is no end in sight for the current market decline so there is nothing they can do to address stockholder’s equity or market capitalization requirements. These companies are not going into bankruptcy – but instead are now being traded on the OTC Bulletin Board, OTCQX market tier and the Pink Sheets.
Schapiro Is “In”
On Thursday, the US Senate confirmed Mary Schapiro as the new SEC Chair, as noted in this article. This followed Schapiro’s responses to Senator Carl Levin, in which she said she favored advisory votes on executive compensation and wanted to smaller companies to start complying with Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley (instead of continuing to grant them one-year exemptions from the law).
Having now observed a number of SEC Chairs over the years, I have found the proof is in the pudding – we really don’t know what a Chair will be like until they actually do something. Some Chairs who people thought might be great, turned out to be not so hot – and others people thought would be captured by industry, turned out to be quite good. Time is an excellent judge of SEC Chairs.
A few weeks ago, I conducted a poll regarding what you thought about Mary’s prospects as a SEC Chair. Here is a pie chart of the results:
With the coming regulatory reform likely to be a whopper (the House passed the “TARP Reform and Accountability Act” on Wednesday; it’s not expected to go anywhere in the Senate though), I predict a huge host of changes this year beyond those required by law. For example, Corporate America will start catching up with the young folks online (my 14-year old lives for Facebook).
Case in point: On Wednesday, eBay’s Richard Brewer-Hay (the guy behind eBay’s “Ink Blog”) sent a total of approximately 70 tweets during an eBay earnings call (it’s hard to pinpoint the exact number; it depends if you count “retweets”). It’s pretty amazing to witness a play-by-play of what is happening during the earnings call. Talk about real-time disclosure!
I’ll leave aside the legal analysis of this activity for another day as I’m still agape over how this could alter the disclosure playing field. Yes, earnings calls are now available via audio streaming (ie. webcast) – but for those that like the written word and don’t want to wait for a transcript, this is a pretty remarkable development. Third-party services have done similar things with earnings calls, but not anyone in-house that I’ve seen.
However, as Dominic Jones shares with his LinkedIn group (see below for more on that):
In my view, live tweeting is *not* a worthwhile practice or good use of Twitter. As you will be able to see for yourself, it creates a lot of noise and is difficult to follow. Here’s a predefined search on Twitter that shows you only the twitter messages relevant to eBay’s earnings announcement (not how the average twitter user would see them). However, much more effective is how eBay is now treating its quarterly earnings announcements on its corporate news blog. They’ve set up a new page that posts a summary of the earnings release, links to the webcast replay, access to past earnings releases AND links to news articles about the company’s results. This is an interesting development.
Essentially, eBay is targeting different audiences with the blog version of its earnings announcements than it does with its traditional IR website. I’m not sure this is a good idea, and eventually I expect that the IR website will begin to reflect the blog. As it stands, the blog people at eBay are doing a better job communicating the company’s results than the IR people. That’s something the IR profession needs to think about.
Welcome to Dominic Jones, Co-Editor of InvestorRelationships.com
Hat tip to Dominic Jones of IR Web Report fame for pointing out this eBay eye-opener! Not only is Dominic on the cutting-edge of issues related to the intersection of IR and technology, he is tremendous as an investigative reporter. I’m very excited to announce that he recently agreed to join me as Co-Editor of InvestorRelationships.com and he wrote the lead article in the Winter ’09 issue that we just posted. It’s entitled “Online Annual Reports and Proxy Statements: What’s Wrong And How to Fix It.” Remember InvestorRelationships.com is absolutely free – you just need to sign up.
For those interested in IR matters, I recommend that you request to join Dominic’s new LinkedIn Group, “Investor Relations 2.0.”
I’m heading to San Diego on Tuesday so I can witness Northwestern’s “Annual Securities Regulation Institute” for the first time. If you’re heading that way, let me know and we can break bread. I’m tempted to tweet during it, but may take notes the old-fashioned way and report back…
The Obama Administration’s Promising Push to Modernize
Just after Barack Obama was sworn-in as President on Tuesday, the White House website underwent a make-over as noted in this NY Times piece. Although there has been a lot of fanfare over the White House’s new blog and YouTube channel, the real power that the Obama Administration will bring to government is the leveraging of social media and other technologies to get better ideas from a larger collective and to communicate regulatory changes and interpretations more effectively.
Ever since Obama won the election, his transition team has hit the ground running here in DC – and I have heard that they promptly requested that all federal agencies provide them with information regarding their technological capabilities. It could be that the Obama Administration will force all the agencies to weave social media and other technologies into their daily activities in the near future.
Some pretty exciting stuff – and it may well make some of the ideas expressed in the SEC’s “21st Century Disclosure Initiative” seem quaint before you know it. On the other hand, the reality is that this is the government we are talking about. As this Washington Post article suggests, it’s not going to be easy for the new Administration to do what they are used to with technology.
January-February Issue of The Corporate Counsel
We recently mailed the January-February issue of The Corporate Counsel to the printers. This issue includes pieces on:
– Annual Proxy Season Practice Tips
– The FAS 5 Treaty—Impact of Recent and Coming Changes in Accounting Standards
– S-K 403 Disclosure of Negative Pledge
– Reverse Split Uptick?
– A Few Thoughts on Form 12b-25
– Staff Reverses/Clarifies That 8-K Item 5.02(b) Not Triggered by Director’s Required Tender of Resignation
– Schedule 13D/G—CSX and Other Uncertainties—Time for Staff Input
– New CDI Now Says Plan Should Be Filed As S-8 Exhibit
– Two Recent Restricted Stock Staff Letters
– Get Ready for More Short Sale Regulation
Act Now: Get this issue on a complimentary basis when you try a 2009 no-risk trial today. As all subscriptions are on a calendar-year basis, renew now to continue receiving upcoming issues during a time of great change.
Dave and Mark Borges just wrapped up – and we have just posted the Winter 2009 issue of our quarterly “Proxy Disclosure Updates” Newsletter, which is free for all those that try a no-risk trial to Lynn, Romanek and Borges’ “The Executive Compensation Disclosure Treatise & Reporting Guide.”
This critical issue provides analysis, practice pointers – and model disclosures – regarding executive pay risks, a new type of disclosure that all companies will need to address in the wake of EESA and other regulatory responses to the crisis. The issue also provides new analysis regarding disclosures of pledged and hedged shares.
Try No-Risk Trial Now: Order now so we can rush a non-blurred copy of this first issue to you today – as well as a copy of the 1000-page Treatise; note there is a reduced rate if you are ’09 member of CompensationStandards.com. If at any time you are not completely satisfied with the Treatise, simply return it and we will refund the entire cost.
When you order the Treatise, not only do you get a hard copy mailed to you, you also get access to an e-version on CompensationDisclosure.com. And you also get access to the quarterly Updates newsletters that make up the “Lynn, Romanek & Borges’ Executive Compensation Annual Service.”
SEC Chair Chris Cox is History
Apparently, SEC Chair Chris Cox resigned on Inauguration Day, even though it didn’t make news until later yesterday – and the SEC still hasn’t issued a press release! Which is pretty ironic given how Cox was fascinated with media coverage during his tenure. Elisse Walter will serve as Acting Chair until the Senate votes on Schapiro’s nomination…
From FEI’s “Financial Reporting” Blog: Here is the White House memo, in which White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel expressed the Obama Administration’s desire to review all new and pending regulations. Among the points in the memo are that: with certain exceptions, no proposed or final regulations should be sent for publication in the Federal Register unless reviewed by a department or agency head appointed or designated by President Obama, and agencies are instructed to consider extending the effective date of pending regulations by 60 days.
The SEC Issues “21st Century Disclosure Initiative” Blueprint
Meeting the timeframe promised, the SEC unveiled its “Report of the 21st Century Disclosure Initiative” last week. As set forth in earlier draft plans, the Report is a high-level blueprint for a new disclosure framework that would result in companies no longer filing lengthy disclosure documents. Instead, companies would maintain an online ‘company file’ with interchangeable parts.
In calmer times, this might be an exciting development (as I’ve blogged about before). These days, it seems like a misdirected focus. The SEC is under heavy attack – and in some cases, for good reason. Time to hone in on substance, not form. Please save our markets.
We just posted the “Winter ’09 Issue” of InvestorRelationships.com (we are maintaining this publication as complimentary thru ’09 as a “Thank You” to our loyal members in a down economy). The “Winter ’09” issue includes articles on:
– Online Annual Reports and Proxy Statements: What’s Wrong and How to Fix It
– The Birth of “Video Annual Reports:” A Substitute for the Written Word?
– Disclosure of Committee Membership When Members Have Changed
– A Practical Approach to Updating Committee Charters
If you’re not yet a member of InvestorRelationships.com, simply provide your contact information in this sign-up form and gain free and immediate access to the issue. If you signed up last year, your ID/password will continue to work – if you forgot what those are, go here to get a reminder.
In addition, Broadridge has built a “Shareholder Education” website, which they intend to make available from their proxy voting pages (eg. ProxyVote.com). This supplements an online tool that companies can use to create their own beneficial notice online. That tool will soon be enhanced to enable companies to create their proxy cards. Tune in on February 5th for our webcast – “How to Implement E-Proxy in Year Two” – featuring Lyell Dampeer of Broadridge, Carl Hagberg, two proxy solicitors (Tom Ball and Paul Schulman) and Keir Gumbs.
The Latest Developments: Your Upcoming Proxy Disclosures—What You Need to Do Now!
Don’t forget to tune in today for the CompensationStandards.com webcast – “The Latest Developments: Your Upcoming Proxy Disclosures—What You Need to Do Now!,” featuring Mark Borges, Alan Dye, Dave Lynn and Ron Mueller. This is the first of a two-webcast series, with the second one taking place the following Wednesday, January 28th.
Given the heightened importance of executive pay right now – and the high likelihood that Congress will pass “say-on-pay” legislation, this year’s compensation disclosures will receive unprecedented scruntiny by investors, employees, customers and the media.
Act Now: As all memberships are on a calendar-year basis, you will not be able to access these webcasts if you haven’t renewed for ’09 – so please renew today. If you aren’t a member, try a no-risk trial for ’09.
Yesterday, the US Senate held a 90-minute confirmation hearing for Mary Schapiro to determine if she will be the next SEC Chair. Here are articles from Washington Post, NY Times and WSJ (and here is the WSJ Blog’s play-by-play of the hearing). Among other things, Mary said she may:
– Increase power of large shareholders to nominate directors and shape governance practices
– Pursue legislation to increase auditor oversight
– Consider changing IFRS transition timetable
– Act more aggresively against fraud
– Study short-selling impact
– Continue plan to register hedge funds
– Revamp how securitie are rated
Nasdaq Increases Compliance Period for “Market Capitalization Requirement”
On Wednesday, Nasdaq filed an immediately effective rule change with the SEC, which extends the compliance period which a listed company gets when it fails to comply with the market value of listed securities requirement – what they used to call the “market capitalization requirement” – from 30 to 90 days, making it consistent with the compliance period allowed for companies that fail the “market value of publicly-held shares” requirement. While this likely was done partially in response to market conditions, the old 30-day compliance period was too short in any market environment.
The Latest Cross-Border Deal Developments
With the dealmaking environment facing unforeseeable challenges – and the SEC making the biggest batch of changes to its cross-border in years, practitioners are grappling with how these deals will now change. Learn from these experts how cross-border deal practices are evolving and how they differ from the past in Thursday’s DealLawyers.com webcast, “Implementing the New Cross-Border Rules“:
– Christina Chalk, Senior Special Counsel, Division of Corporation Finance’s Office of Mergers & Acquisitions
– Frank Aquila, Partner, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP
– Peter King, Partner, Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP
– Alan Klein, Partner, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP
– Greg Wolski, Partner, Ernst & Young LLP
Renew Now: As all memberships are on a calendar-year basis, you need to renew now to access this webcast. If you’re not a member, try a no-risk trial for 2009.
GAO Report: Laying Down Ground Rules for Financial System Reform Debate
With Treasury’s financial system overhaul proposal already on the table (in addition to remarks by other government officials, e.g., Ben Bernanke), the GAO issued a report last week detailing a framework that can be used for evaluating these and future proposals to modernize the financial regulatory system.
In the report, the GAO reviews various market developments over the last century and how they have revealed gaps and limitations in the existing regulatory system, and then sets out nine characteristics (the framework) that should be reflected in any new regulatory system. The GAO hopes that by applying the framework to a proposed financial system reform, the benefits and trade-offs involved will become apparent.
According to the report, any regulatory system that Congress would implement should:
1. Have clearly defined and relevant regulatory goals.
2. Have comprehensive regulation of activities that pose risks to consumer protection and financial stability, while recognizing that not all activities will require the same level of regulation.
3. Have a mechanism for identifying, monitoring and managing risks to the financial system.
4. Be adaptable and forward-looking to respond to market innovations/changes and include a mechanism for evaluating potential new risks to the system.
5. Provide efficient oversight of financial services by eliminating overlapping federal regulatory missions while effectively achieving the goals of regulation.
6. Include consumer and investor protection as part of the regulatory mission.
7. Provide regulators with independence, prominence, authority and accountability.
8. Ensure that similar institutions, products, risks and services are subject to consistent regulation, oversight and transparency.
9. Have adequate safeguards that allow financial institution failures to occur while limiting taxpayers’ exposure to financial risk.
Next up is Treasury’s (EESA-required) recommendations on “the current state of the financial markets and the regulatory system,” due April 30, 2009. Keep up-to-date with these happening in our “Credit Crunch” Practice Area.
Tune in on Wednesday for the CompensationStandards.com webcast – “The Latest Developments: Your Upcoming Proxy Disclosures—What You Need to Do Now!,” featuring Mark Borges, Alan Dye, Dave Lynn and Ron Mueller. This is the first of a two-webcast series, with the second one taking place the following Wednesday, January 28th.
Given the heightened importance of executive pay right now – and the high likelihood that Congress will pass “say-on-pay” legislation, this year’s compensation disclosures will receive unprecedented scruntiny by investors, employees, customers and the media.
Act Now: As all memberships are on a calendar-year basis, you will not be able to access these webcasts if you haven’t renewed for ’09 – so please renew today. If you aren’t a member, try a no-risk trial for ’09.
Ed Durkin on CD&A Reviews
Recently, I caught up with Ed Durkin, Director of Corporate Affairs at the United Brotherhood of Carpenters Pension, to conduct this podcast on CompensationStandards.com. In the podcast, Ed explains how the Carpenters Union reviews CD&As (here is a sample evaluation form that will help you understand the Union’s analysis process), including:
– How many CD&As does the Carpenters Union look at?
– What does the Union look for in a CD&A?
– How does the Carpenters engage with companies on their CD&A?
Forecast for 2009 Proxy Season: Wild and Woolly
We have posted the transcript from Pat McGurn’s popular webcast: “Forecast for 2009 Proxy Season: Wild and Woolly.” As all memberships are on a calendar-year basis, renew today if you haven’t so far…
Wow! Blessed to Have So Many New LinkedIn Friends!
Well, I threw down the LinkedIn gauntlet yesterday and thanks to the “oh so many” of you that are now connected with me – and even more thanks to the very kind words that folks inserted into their invites. I was geniunely touched (sitting in my pajamas all day over here – and not much in the way of face-to-face – can get lonely). I’m happy to report the power of blogging translated into over 100 new connections! Keep ’em coming by inviting me.
As promised, here are the first ten folks that responded to my “invite” request:
Recently, General Electric launched a new blog – GEReports.com – that is creating quite a stir. As part of this effort, a companion YouTube channel was launched.
Launched by GE’s Communications team, GE intends for the blog to be a way of providing investors with additional information, not to replace other modes of disclosure. I really applaud GE’s efforts – and in talking to my in-house colleagues, it seems to have done the trick in opening other company’s eyes to the potential of blogging. Between this new blog and Dell’s IR blog – which is now over a year old – IROs and communications officers can get a good idea about the types of topics that are fodder for blogging.
The only thing I get worried about is that GE seems like it’s using its blog to respond to rumors. For example, GE has used the blog to say it’s not seeking equity investments from sovereign wealth funds and that it will not cut the dividend through the end of ’09.
Most companies have a policy against responding to rumors to avoid any duty to update – and because if you do respond to rumors and then say “no comment” to one, folks will assume the rumor is true because otherwise you would have denied it! However, with rumors being used by short-sellers to drive down stock prices these days, it may be time for companies to rethink those “don’t respond to rumor” policies.
I can’t help but note the insipid quote from a Professor in this Reuters article that wonders if the information in GE’s blog will be valid or whether the blog is part of an “agenda.”
The purpose of blogging is to build trust, so it would be silly for GE to post inaccurate information (not to mention the basis for potential litigation). And yes, GE has an “agenda” – to inform shareholders, which in turn will build trust and support the stock price.
A Special LinkedIn Request
To help me fulfill one of my New Years’ resolutions, if you’re on LinkedIn, please become one of my “networking friends.” To do so, just email me and I’ll invite you – or just “invite me” thru my LinkedIn profile. The first ten to invite me today get their names in the blog tomorrow if they want (if you don’t want that, no big deal – I’ll label you as an anonymous donor). And if you’re a SEC alumni, feel free to join this new group, “SEC Staff Alumni.”
If you’re not on LinkedIn but curious about what it is, you can email me and I’ll explain. But the gist is that it’s not like Facebook (which is more of a social site with plenty of inane chatter) – rather, LinkedIn is filled with professionals. So far, there is not much activity on LinkedIn other than folks asking each other to be “connected.” But that typically is the groundwork for some serious networking that may take place later. I really can’t see any harm in placing yourself up there, even if you don’t intend to ever use it (because someday you may change your mind and you’ll already have gathered some networking contacts through the site). The key is LinkedIn will not require you to spend time maintaining your page, etc.
Twitter, Yammer? What Does This Mean For Me?
More and more is being written about Twitter. Called a “microblog,” Twitter allows one to send a message up to 140 characters (roughly a short sentence) to all those that “follow” the person sending the message. So far, it’s mainly being used in the business world by journalists to get leads on potential stories – so corporate communications clearly should be using this tool.
But it’s starting to be used elsewhere in the business world. For example, a GE spokesperson used Twitter to respond to a question about its promise to not cut its dividend (scroll down here to find this reply)- so it’s importance for investor relations officers is growing. And the SEC has been using Twitter as a way to push out its press releases, etc. for some time.
Now, I’ve had my own Twitter Feed for well over a year (my personal one is much older than this business one) – but I only recently began to use it on a daily basis. So far, I haven’t seen a dramatic change in my life, but I will let you know. For those of you on Twitter, please follow me to get all the latest.
In his “Delaware Litigation” Blog, Francis Pileggi recently explained why business litigation lawyers might consider Twitter. And in his “Securities Docket,” Bruce Carton provides a running list of Twitter Feeds for securities counsel.
And if the pace of change doesn’t frustrate you enough already, consider that a new service – Yammer – is already being touted as the “new Twitter.”
FINRA Proposes Rule on Rumor Circulation
A few weeks ago, FINSA proposed a rule relating to the circulation of rumors. The proposed rule is based on FINRA Rule 6140 and NYSE Rule 435(5). We have posted memos on this proposal in our “Securities Enforcement” Practice Area.
