Here’s the latest “list” installment from Nina Flax of Mayer Brown (here’s the last one):
I believe none of us, regardless of the stage of our careers, should feel bad, shame or any other negative if we are unable to remain completely unemotional at work. We are human – and emotions make us human! There have been many times throughout my career, and of course in the past few years, that I have cried – including somewhere at work. How I know that I need that outlet as well as support from others in order to remain [more] composed in the inducing situation and after. I need it like the air I breathe.
This got me thinking about crying, how and when I cry, and how some people I work with (internally and externally) do not seem to think of me as being vulnerable for I am sure a plethora of reasons. So, here is a more vulnerable list… a list of Things That Make Me Cry.
1. My Son’s Love. It is a fact that I am a working mom. In fact, I do not think I would be a good mom if I did not work – I am just not cut from that cloth. However, I am in a service profession, which means I have to be available and can have intense hours. Which also means that I have to travel. When my son grabs on to my leg and starts crying hysterically, whether on a “normal” morning when I am going in to work or as I have a suitcase in hand waiting for a car to take me to the airport, I keep it together. Momentarily. The second I walk out of the house and he can no longer see me, remembering his dragon tears and “No, mommy, don’t go! Don’t go [to work] [to the airport]! Stay here! I want you to stay here with me!” – I cry.
2. My Son’s Rejection. See first three sentences above. Which also leads to my husband being the more stable figure who is always able to be there in the morning (no calls in the office from 6am), at night (no working until 3am) and on weekends (for all, no work travel). Which leads to my son at times (sometimes it feels like the vast majority of times) preferring my husband. Which leads to my son, sometimes, yelling “Go away!” or “I don’t want you” or “NO! Only Papa!”, etc. I know this is not atypical. And I know that in the next breath, I get an “I love you” or a hug or a kiss or a head leaning on my shoulder, or, as above, a “Mommy, no, don’t go to work!” These things don’t make the hurt go away. My son’s rejection cuts me to the core, including the guilt I feel that I have to prioritize work sometimes, and I always sneak away to cry by myself. I am saving for another day tag lines that really make me angry – like work-life balance, or lean in. Finally, before I move off of this point, I LOVE the relationship my son and husband have, and would not want their relationship to be any other way. Other than tempering the tone and words of my rejection. If my son said, “Mama, can you please have Papa come in?” or “Mama, I would prefer if Papa tucked me in.” in those moments, I swear I would not cry – I would not feel rejected. Thankfully, he has started heading in this direction.
3. Being Frustrated When I’m Tired. Not kidding. If I am tired and something occurs that I find particularly frustrating, I cry. It is truly a reflex for me. Any frustration.
4. Witnessing Artistic Accomplishments. When I see an amazing ballet, or even watch a moving piece on So They Think They Can Dance (when I watched this show before child), or someone sing beautifully a beautiful song, or someone receiving an award for a fantastic performance, I cry. When people perfect their craft, share it and exude peace and joy at the same time, I am moved. I must admit I am more emotional around the arts, but any deep recognition of achievement, scientific, professional or other non-arts focused, usually makes my eyes at least water.
5. Reading The News. I know I should not admit this in public, but I extremely dislike reading or staying up-to-date on the news. Because inevitably, there is a piece on conflict I seek out, a story about a crime or horrific accident involving a child, or a moving, random act of kindness. The majority of the time I read the news I read something that makes me cry.
6. Feeling Grateful. I have referenced this a bit in my other posts, but I try to remind myself of all that I have to be grateful for. And when I do I realize how much I am grateful for, how trivial some of the things that upset me are, and how there are so many with less. Including children who are hungry, without a roof over their heads, without feeling safe, without feeling loved and/or without books. And I cry.
This makes it seem like I always cry. Those who are closest to me are not at all surprised by my delicate flower status. Those that are not as close to me are probably floored by this post. But I felt compelled to be honest – I am not ashamed of crying, and have learned to temper my feeling of being “less” than anyone in a professional situation who comes across as perfectly composed. Because I love emotions, but maybe a little less than I love books.
Fake SEC Filings: Edgar Fights Back
I really can’t overstate how much we love “fake SEC filings” around here. So it’s with mixed feelings that I report on changes to Edgar that might make these an even rarer occurrence. Specifically, filers now need a longer & more complex password – this Gibson Dunn blog has more detail:
Filers, including Section 16 filers, will now be requested to provide twelve character passwords instead of eight character passwords when logging into both the EDGAR Filing Website and the EDGAR Online Forms Management Website. Current filers who do not update their password to twelve characters will be prompted to update it each time they log in. We have confirmed with the staff of EDGAR Filer Support that current filers who do not update their password when prompted will not be prevented from logging in successfully. However, EDGAR passwords expire annually and should be changed before the expiration date. Any filers who have not already updated their password by the time they otherwise expire will be required to create a password that satisfies the new requirements before being permitted to log in to EDGAR.
Even more interesting from a security perspective is that a “Last Account Activity” tab is being added to the filing & forms websites – so you can see a 30-day history of login attempts and spot any aspiring fakers. And on a more vanilla note, the changes also allow companies to include 150 characters in cover page tags for classes of registered securities (up from 100 characters), since some companies were having trouble fitting it all in.
New Podcast Series! “Women Governance Gurus” With Courtney Kamlet & Liz
Check out the new podcast series – “Women Governance Gurus” – that I’ve been co-hosting with Courtney Kamlet of Syneos Health. So far, these illustrious guests have joined us to talk about their careers in the corporate governance field – and what they see on the horizon:
– Stacey Geer – EVP, Chief Governance Officer, Deputy GC and Corporate Secretary at Primerica
– Kellie Huennekens – Head of Americas, Nasdaq Center for Corporate Governance
– Anne Chapman – Managing Director, Joele Frank
– Hope Mehlman – EVP, Chief Governance Officer at Regions Bank
Stacey’s President & GC even presented her with a new nameplate in honor of the occasion!
When Delaware Chief Justice Leo Strine announced that he’d be leaving the bench this fall, Broc speculated that grander things were yet to come. Now, the influential judge is kicking off his “retirement” with a bang – by publishing this proposal that would recommit to “New Deal” concepts. In particular, the proposal focuses on workers’ rights and a reformed shareholder voting/proposal process (e.g. requiring a “say-on-pay” vote only once every 4 years and changing shareholder proposal thresholds).
This isn’t a big surprise given some of Chief Justice Strine’s prior comments. But it’s more comprehensive. And while he doesn’t go as far as Senator Warren’s “Accountable Capitalism Act,” he does comment that companies are “societally chartered institutions” – notable for a Delaware judge! – and proposes requiring “workforce committees” for boards of all large companies (whether public or private). Here’s an excerpt on that point (and also see this Cooley blog):
To make sure that companies give careful consideration to worker concerns at the board level, the Proposal requires the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Department of Labor, and the National Labor Relations Board to jointly develop rules that would require the boards of companies with more than $1 billion in annual sales to create and maintain a committee focused on workforce concerns. By requiring these committees at all large corporations, not just public corporations, more accountability would be imposed on large private companies, such as those owned by private equity firms, to treat their workforce fairly.
These workforce committees would be focused on addressing fair gain sharing between workers and investors, the workers’ interest in training that assures continued employment, and the workers’ interest in a safe and tolerant workplace. These workforce committees would also consider whether the company uses substitute forms of labor—such as contractors—to fulfill important corporate needs, and whether those contractors pay their workers fairly, provide safe working conditions, and are operating in an ethical way, and are not simply being used to inflate corporate profits at the expense of continuing employment and fair compensation for direct company employees.
Offering a middle-ground between the current system and “codetermination”-style worker representation, the committees would be required to develop and disclose a plan for consulting directly with the company’s workers about important worker matters such as compensation and benefits, opportunities for advancement, and training. Finally, the National Labor Relations Act would be amended to ensure that companies can use dedicated committees to consult with their workers without running afoul of the Act’s prohibition on “dominating” labor organizations, provided that the company doesn’t interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of their rights to collective bargaining and self-organization. In essence, this would allow for European-style “works councils” without impeding union formation and representation.
Should the SEC Get Out of the “Stakeholder Disclosure” Business?
I think most securities practitioners can agree that it’s exhausting to shoehorn certain Congressional mandates for broader ’33 & ’34 Act reporting into the SEC’s mission to protect investors – and when these types of mandates come around, they also seem to be at odds with the Commission’s mission to facilitate capital formation. At the same time, a variety of stakeholders are clamoring for information, and the SEC runs the main disclosure game in town.
This paper by Tulane law prof Ann Lipton plays some of the same notes as Chief Justice Strine’s proposal (and it was actually published before his). For example, that it’s outdated to make disclosure requirements dependent on a company’s capital raising strategy. Here’s part of the abstract:
This Article recommends that we explicitly acknowledge the importance of disclosure for noninvestor audiences, and discuss the feasibility of designing a disclosure system geared to their interests. In so doing, this Article excavates the historical pedigree of proposals for stakeholder-oriented disclosure. Both in the Progressive Era, and again during the 1970s, efforts to create generalized corporate disclosure obligations were commonplace. In each era, however, they were redirected towards investor audiences, in the expectation that investors would serve as a proxy for the broader society. As this Article establishes, that compromise is no longer tenable.
Who would regulate this brave new world? Personally, I think that if the SEC’s mission was expanded, it would be well-suited to take on the challenge – but I’m not sure they’d want the job. Here’s what Ann suggests:
There is currently no federal agency with the skills to manage the system contemplated here. The SEC is not equipped to manage disclosures intended for noninvestors (which is another reason the securities laws should not be used for that purpose). The Federal Trade Commission has broad experience studying business activity, but has fewer disclosure mandates. That said, the SEC and the FTC both have skills and experience that would be useful in developing a new system: both study a wide range of industries, and the SEC in particular has expertise in developing standardized reporting for public audiences, balanced against the costs to businesses of complying with disclosure demands.
Therefore, it might be appropriate to create a joint initiative that draws on the resources and knowledge of both agencies. The initiative could begin its work by studying how public information about corporations is used by noninvestor audiences, including surveying local regulators, as well as advocacy and trade groups, for their input as to how existing disclosures are used and the weaknesses in the current system. Based on the results of this survey, the initiative could develop a standardized framework that would permit meaningful comparisons across reporting companies.
New! Quick Survey on Hedging Policy Disclosure
At our conference a few weeks ago a few weeks ago (which you can still register & watch via video archive), there were a lot of questions about how companies will handle the newly required hedging policy disclosure. Take a moment to participate in our 3-question “Quick Survey on Hedging Policy Disclosure” and see what others are planning to do.
Here’s something I recently blogged on CompensationStandards.com: As you can see from the studies posted in our “Director Pay” Practice Area, it’s become a pretty rare thing for public companies to pay director meeting fees. In fact, this Pearl Meyer blog reports that fewer than 25% of companies are doing it (though it’s still a majority practice at private companies). The blog gives these recommendations if your directors insist on being paid for attendance:
1. If your number of board or committee meetings is consistently above your peer group meeting, revisit whether your retainers account for that workload
2. If there’s a non-recurring situation, consider an ad-hoc retainer for affected directors
3. If directors are uncertain about their workload, consider conditional meeting fees if the number of meetings exceeds a pre-established threshold
SEC Enforcement: Check Your “Loss Contingency” Disclosure!
Ah, autumn. A time to relish the changing leaves, cooler temps and of course the deluge of press releases from the SEC’s Enforcement Division that drop before the end of the Commission’s September 30th fiscal year. Here’s an announcement about charges against the pharma company Mylan, which was the subject of a two-year DOJ probe and didn’t disclose any loss contingencies or accrue any estimated losses prior to announcing a $465 million settlement.
The SEC’s complaint also took issue with the company’s “hypothetical” risk factor disclosures about government authorities taking contrary positions to its Medicaid submissions, when CMS had already informed Mylan that a product was misclassified. Mylan agreed to settle the SEC matter for $30 million.
Things like this tend to seem pretty clear in hindsight – especially if you’re reading about them in an SEC announcement. But it really requires a thorough understanding of the rules and a lot of judgment. Don’t forget that we have handbooks to help you sort through it all. Here’s the one on “Legal Proceedings Disclosures” – and here’s the one on “Risk Factors.”
SEC Enforcement: Actually, Just Check All Your Disclosures
Here’s another recent settlement between the SEC’s Enforcement Division and a company that disclosed allegedly misleading customer metrics (the CEO was also charged). This one’s scary because it delves into the type of non-financial stuff that gets added to earnings releases (and occasionally periodic reports) without a lot of lawyerly checking. This Stinson blog explains the allegations:
In 2014 and 2015, Comscore disclosed its total number of customers and net new customers added in quarterly earnings calls. Comscore also disclosed its customer total in periodic filings with the Commission. According to the SEC the number of net new customers added per quarter was an important performance indicator for Comscore that analysts tracked and reported on. During this time, in an effort to conceal the fact that quarterly growth in Comscore’s customer total had slowed or was declining, a Comcast employee allegedly approved and implemented multiple changes to the methodology by which the quarterly customer count was calculated. These changes were neither applied retroactively nor disclosed to the public per the SEC order.
Coincidentally, a recent Corp Fin comment letter raised similar issues for a different company. Comments might be down overall, but don’t let anyone tell you that Corp Fin is “calling it in” for their reviews. They took issue with the number of customers disclosed by a gym in its annual report and – of all the things! – the viewership stats that the company cited for “Dick Clark’s Rockin’ Eve” (see this Bass Berry blog).
For those of us who want to save companies from fines & embarrassment, the question is how to vet non-financial metrics efficiently and without losing all your friends & clients. Some members have suggested putting a “stake in the ground” that describes how customer metrics are calculated – whether that’s a widely-available internal thing or actually in the 10-K would be up for debate (both shareholders & competitors would prefer the latter). Shoot me an email if you have other ideas…
Here’s something John blogged last week on DealLawyers.com: Don’t look now, but the Delaware Chancery Court just upheld another Caremark claim in the face of a motion to dismiss. In his 50-page opinion in In re Clovis Oncology Derivative Litigation, (Del. Ch.; 10/19), Vice Chancellor Slights held that the plaintiffs had adequately pled that the board breached its fiduciary duties by failing to oversee a clinical trial for the company’s experimental lung cancer drug and then allowing the company to mislead the market regarding the drug’s efficacy.
In declining to dismiss the case, the Vice Chancellor observed that Delaware courts are more likely to find liability under Caremark for oversight failures involving compliance obligations under regulatory mandates than for those involving oversight of ordinary business risks:
Caremark rests on the presumption that corporate fiduciaries are afforded “great discretion to design context- and industry-specific approaches tailored to their companies’ businesses and resources.” Indeed, “[b]usiness decision-makers must operate in the real world, with imperfect information, limited resources, and uncertain future. To impose liability on directors for making a ‘wrong’ business decision would cripple their ability to earn returns for investors by taking business risks.”
But, as fiduciaries, corporate managers must be informed of, and oversee compliance with, the regulatory environments in which their businesses operate. In this regard, as relates to Caremark liability, it is appropriate to distinguish the board’s oversight of the company’s management of business risk that is inherent in its business plan from the board’s oversight of the company’s compliance with positive law—including regulatory mandates.
As this Court recently noted, “[t]he legal academy has observed that Delaware courts are more inclined to find Caremark oversight liability at the board level when the company operates in the midst of obligations imposed upon it by positive law yet fails to implement compliance systems, or fails to monitor existing compliance systems, such that a violation of law, and resulting liability, occurs.”
VC Slights cited the Delaware Supreme Court’s recent decision in Marchand v. Barnhill, and noted that that case “underscores the importance of the board’s oversight function when the company is operating in the midst of ‘mission critical’ regulatory compliance risk.”
Caremark requires a plaintiff to establish that the board either “completely fail[ed] to implement any reporting or information system or controls” or failed to adequately monitor that system by ignoring “red flags” of non-compliance. While the board’s governance committee was responsible for overseeing compliance with regulatory requirements applicable to the clinical trial, the Vice Chancellor held that the plaintiff adequately pled that it knowingly ignored red flags indicating that the company was not complying with those requirements. Accordingly, he declined to dismiss the case.
Ann Lipton has some interesting perspectives on VC Slights’ distinction between business & legal compliance risks over on her Twitter feed. Check it out.
Caremark still may be, as former Chancellor Allen put it, “possibly the most difficult theory in corporation law upon which a plaintiff might hope to win a judgment.” But after decades of routinely dismissing Caremark claims at the pleading stage, this marks the second time this year that the Delaware courts have declined to do so – and it’s the third case in the last two years in which they’ve characterized a Caremark claim as “viable.”
Is Caremark becoming a more viable theory of liability, or is board’s conduct in these cases just more egregious than in prior cases? It’s hard to say based on the limited evidence we have. For now, maybe the ’60s band Buffalo Springfield put it best – “There’s something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear. . .”
ISS Proposes Policy Changes: Comment By October 18th!
Yesterday, ISS announced a public comment period for proposed policy changes that would apply to next year’s annual meetings. For the US, the proposed changes are:
1. Clarifying a maximum 7-year sunset and other parameters for multi-class capital structures at newly public companies
2. Codifying ISS’s existing approach to “independent chair” shareholder proposals by identifying factors that will weigh in favor of a “For” recommendation – e.g. a “weak or poorly defined lead director role” – and moving some info into the “Policy FAQs”
3. Adding safeguards against “abusive practices” to the policy to vote “For” management proposals for buyback programs – e.g. the use of buybacks to boost EPS-based pay metrics
Submit comments to policy@issgovernance.com by next Friday – October 18th. Unless otherwise specified in writing, all comments will be disclosed publicly upon release of final policies – which is expected during the first half of November.
Ransomware: Preparing for a Growing Threat
According to a recent NYT article, more than 40 municipalities have been victims of ransomware attacks this year, including the 23 towns in Texas that were hit recently. This Wachtell Lipton memo predicts that ransomware is a growing threat for companies too – and offers these preparation & response tips (also see the suggestions in this “Accounting Today” article):
Before an attack:
– Reduce ransomware exposure by implementing reliable backup processes for IT systems & critical data
– Get cyber insurance that covers costs associated with ransomware incidents
– Implement incident response plans – including elevation procedures
– Foster pre-attack relationships with law enforcement
Responding to an attack:
– Protect attorney-client privilege by assigning legal counsel a leadership response role & engaging other advisers through counsel
– Assess disclosure obligations – e.g. state & international data breach notifications, SEC and industry-specific disclosure requirements
– Determine notice requirements for insurers, vendors and customers
– Approach the decision whether to pay a ransom with great caution & careful deliberation
On that last point about whether to pay a ransom, this ProPublica article outlines the pros & cons for victims – and suggests insurers have an incentive to accommodate the attackers even if (or because?) doing so leads to more incidents. According to the article, cyber insurance is now a $7-8 billion/year market, and insurers know that could fall apart if nobody is worried about getting hacked.
Recently, Lawrence Heim – himself the author of the book “Killing Sustainability” – sent me this 17-page essay on “greenwishing.” It’s written by Duncan Austin – a former investment manager at a large sustainable investment firm – and traces the rise in investor & consumer interest in sustainability. While it seems like that might be a good thing, Duncan opines that pushing sustainability as a cost-free endeavor – or a half-baked profit-driver – is hurting the cause. Of course, here’s the current problem with trying to do it any other way:
Today, companies can only pursue sustainable behaviors that are profitable. This rules out many sustainability actions that corporations are uniquely positioned to offer–and used to provide–though certain initiatives can make the grade as long-term investments, with characteristic extended payback periods. Yet, corporate pronouncements of such long-term investment plans are precisely the klaxon calls that bring activist investors running to restore short-term profit-maximizing order.
So here we have some evidence that deep down, even the most ardent proponents of sustainability reporting know that those metrics are always going to be “second class” compared to financial figures (even though financials don’t reflect external costs). In other words, reporting on sustainability metrics isn’t the answer. Duncan calls on people in the sustainable business community to take a more collaborative approach – e.g. by prodding their companies to disclose political contributions, not lobbying against environmental protection policies and adding disclosure – but not the type we’ve been focused on:
The disclosure now required is not more detail about a company’s own greenhouse gas emissions or water use, but rather what companies publicly stand for regarding the changes in rules and prices needed for a more sustainable world–and what, exactly, they are doing about it. This is the critical question we must now ask our portfolio managers and corporations.
It’s an interesting idea and aligns with the BRT’s recent statements. A few companies are even forming “public policy” board committees (see this Diligent video). Investors & lawmakers will probably have to take up the mantle on this before directors would do anything drastic…but some companies might actually benefit from supporting legislation that “levels the playing field.”
Better The Devil You Know? ISS ESG Business Keeps Growing
Most of us primarily think of ISS as a proxy advisor, but it’s also been not-so-quietly building its ESG business since acquiring oekom research last year. According to this announcement, ISS ESG (the “responsible investment arm of ISS”) now employs nearly 400 people and offers a slew of new products:
– Climate research & impact services – to help investors “reflect & vote their views on a company’s climate-change risks, disclosure & performance”
– Indexing services – for investors who want to build turnkey or custom indexes
– Publication of a broad range of data about 7800 companies on the “FactSet” marketplace – which aggregates data & analysis from many vendors for investors to access
– Absolute & relative ESG rankings of companies – see our “ESG” Practice Area for more info on the types of ratings & methodologies
I’ve blogged that State Street already uses ISS data in its “R-Factor” scoring. And to further appeal to investors, the press release says that ISS is showing how its ratings align with the SASB reporting framework:
ISS ESG has mapped its ESG Corporate Rating against the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board’s (SASB) industry standards to identify the degree of alignment and completion of accounting standards and performance ratings. The mapping shows meaningful alignment with the SASB view on the relevance of ESG performance information for investors and the status of ESG materiality within the rating.
Furthermore, a mapping of the ESG Corporate Rating methodology against the recent EU taxonomy proposal also showed great alignment, enabling investors to prepare and align their investments towards the EU taxonomy objectives.
ISS: “Climate Change” Voting & Research
Of course, ISS is also capitalizing on E&S interest through its proxy advisory services. The “climate research & impact services” offered by ISS ESG include a “climate change” voting service that scores disclosure, climate performance & sector-specific materiality. It’s marketed as a service that helps investors create & act on their own customized voting policies – in other words, it’s not a set of ISS-dictated voting recommendations. But it’s probably worth noting that ISS’s annual policy survey included questions about director accountability for climate change risk, so maybe that will be coming in some form.
This ISS blog says that select research reports will now also include the “ISS Climate Awareness Scorecard.” The blog gives some info on how the research report & voting service scoring will work – e.g. here are some of the TCFD-based disclosure topics that will win brownie points:
– Climate change strategy
– Climate change risk management – and how the processes are integrated into the overall risk management program
– Climate change targets & metrics
I’ve blogged from time to time on CompensationStandards.com that people are starting to question whether “pay-for-performance” is all it’s cracked up to be – and now you can add CII to its list of skeptics. Yesterday, the Council of Institutional Investors announced that it had overhauled its “Executive Compensation Policy” to urge companies to dial back the complexity of their plans and – when it comes to long-term incentives – to use at least a five-year period to measure performance.
While the old policy called for executive pay to be driven predominately by performance and said that salary should be no more than $1 million, the new policy suggests that some companies may be able to do without annual metric-based incentives – and says this about fixed pay:
Fixed pay is a legitimate element of senior executive compensation. Compensation committees should carefully consider and determine the right risk balance for the particular company and executive. It can be appropriate to emphasize fixed pay (which essentially has no risk for the employee) as a significant pay element, particularly where it makes sense to disincentivize “bet the company” risk taking and promote stability. Fixed pay also has the advantage of being easy to understand and value, for the company, the executive and shareholders. That said, compensation committees should set pay considering risk-adjusted value, and so, to the extent that fixed pay is a relatively large element, compensation committees need to moderate pay levels in comparison with what would be awarded with contingent, variable pay.
The new policy also broadens its approach to clawbacks – adding to the list of appropriate recovery events “personal misconduct or ethical issues that cause, or could cause, material reputational harm to the company and its shareholders.”
While some of these changes may be driven by the repeal of 162(m) (there’s no longer a tax advantage to keeping salaries low), CII hasn’t been shy about its concerns on murky pay-for-performance disclosure. And based on its reaction to the BRT’s recent emphasis on “stakeholders,” there may be some heartburn about ESG metrics that are starting to pop up in incentive plans…
Amy Borrus to Succeed Ken Bertsch as CII Leader Next Year
CII also recently announced that Amy Borrus, the organization’s current Deputy Director, will succeed Ken Bertsch as Executive Director when he retires in August 2020. Amy has served as CII’s Deputy Director since 2006 and was Interim Executive Director from June 2015 to March 2016.
Glass Lewis CEO KT Rabin to Depart
In other transition news, Glass Lewis announced that KT Rabin is stepping down after 12 years as CEO (she’ll continue as a member of the company’s Research Advisory Council).
The proxy advisor has appointed its co-founder, former President and Research Advisory Council member Kevin Cameron to the role of Executive Chair and has appointed Carrie Busch as President. Carrie ran Glass Lewis’s research department years ago and is now returning to the company.
We’ve questioned whether institutional investors would ever be so concerned about a unicorn’s governance structure that they would pass on an IPO investment. Amid the plummeting expectations for the “We Company’s” valuation, this NYT article suggests investors may have found their limit. The company has made a few change in response – and this WSJ article says that all the fuss has even led to postponing the roadshow that was expected to occur this week.
Of course, another headline could be, “Investors Finding Their Limit With Unprofitable Companies,” but in this case, an overly optimistic valuation combined with things like trying to give founder & CEO Adam Nuemann extra voting rights into the afterlife just went too far. Here’s an excerpt from the NYT article describing the amended Form S-1 that the company filed last Friday:
The business would appoint a lead independent director and bar any member of Mr. Neumann’s family from the board. The special class of stock that Mr. Neumann owns will now have 10 votes per share, down from 20. Should he die or become permanently disabled, those shares will have only one vote apiece. Even so, Mr. Neumann will control a majority of shareholder votes after the change.
The board will also have the ability to choose Mr. Neumann’s successor; previously, succession was left to a three-person committee that included his wife, Rebekah.
And remember the concerns about the company’s related party transactions? There were a few changes there too:
And Mr. Neumann has pledged to give back any profits he makes from leasing properties to the We Company, transactions that prospective investors had highlighted as potential conflicts of interest.
Board Gender Diversity: Giving Credit Ratings a Lift?
A recent Moody’s study of over 1100 companies found a positive relationship between board gender diversity and credit ratings – but since the analysis didn’t examine other factors that might be affecting credit quality, it doesn’t prove causation. Here’s an excerpt:
The variance in board gender diversity is particularly evident at both ends of the rating spectrum. For instance, the five Aaa-rated companies in our cohort have the highest level of gender diversity on their boards, with women accounting for an average of 28% of their corporate directors. Women generally make up about a quarter of the boards of companies rated Baa1 or higher, with gender diversity largely declining by rating category to less than 5% for our two Ca-rated companies.
The study also points out that diversity mandates – while not common – might cause short-term business risks through board turnover, which could potentially create short-term credit risk:
For North American companies almost 75% would have to add at least one woman by the end of 2021. High levels of board turnover could signal a material change in corporate strategy or financial policies.While these changes could be both credit positive or credit negative, we tend to view the uncertainty as credit negative.
Board Gender Diversity: Russell 3000 Passes the 20% Milestone
For the first time ever, more than 20% of Russell 3000 board seats are occupied by women. That’s according to this Equilar announcement, which highlights the momentum in this area since Equilar first began publishing its quarterly “Gender Diversity Index” in 2017.
Today is the “16th Annual Executive Compensation Conference”; yesterday was the “Proxy Disclosure Conference” (for which the video archive is already posted). Note you can still register to watch online by using your credit card and getting an ID/pw kicked out automatically to you without having to interface with our staff. Both Conferences are paired together; two Conferences for the price of one.
– How to Attend by Video Webcast: If you are registered to attend online, just go to the home page of TheCorporateCounsel.net or CompensationStandards.com to watch it live or by archive (note that it will take about a day to post the video archives after it’s shown live). A prominent link called “Enter the Conference Here” – on the home pages of those sites – will take you directly to today’s Conference (and on the top of that Conference page, you will select a link matching the video player on your computer: HTML5, Windows Media or Flash Player). Here are the “Course Materials.”
Remember to use the ID and password that you received for the Conferences (which may not be your normal ID/password for TheCorporateCounsel.net or CompensationStandards.com). If you are experiencing technical problems, follow these webcast troubleshooting tips. Here is today’s conference agenda; times are Central.
– How to Earn CLE Online: Please read these “FAQs about Earning CLE” carefully to see if that is possible for you to earn CLE for watching online – and if so, how to accomplish that. Remember you will first need to input your Bar number(s) and that you will need to click on the periodic “prompts” all throughout each Conference to earn credit. Both Conferences will be available for CLE credit in all states except for a few – but hours for each state vary; see this “List: CLE Credit By State.”
Streamlined MD&As: How to Handle Retrospective Accounting Changes
Under the Fast Act, Item 303(a) now allows companies that provide three years’ worth of financials in their 10-K to omit from their MD&A a discussion of the earliest year. We’ve heard some companies ask how they should handle disclosure if they’ve retrospectively adopted a new accounting principle for that earliest year. These notes from a recent meeting between the CAQ & Corp Fin Staff shed some light on the SEC’s expectations (see pg. 3):
The Committee asked the staff how registrants should consider the effect of retrospective changes in omitting the earliest year discussion, given that registrants must disclose the location in the prior filing where the disclosure can be found. The staff noted that this amendment does not change the standard that applies to all of MD&A – a registrant shall provide such other information that it believes to be necessary to an understanding of its financial condition, changes in financial condition and results of operations.
Accordingly, where there has been a retrospective change, a registrant should assess whether the previously filed disclosure that it is considering omitting and making reference to continues to provide the information necessary to understand the registrant’s financial condition, changes in financial condition and results of operations.
XBRL: What’s It Good For?
XBRL has been around 10 years! A lot of people would say it’s still good for absolutely nothing – among other reasons, because it requires extra software to consume, doesn’t cover non-GAAP disclosures and can be error-prone. But there are a few cheerleaders. This FEI interview gives some insight into how Famous Dave’s CFO Paul Malazita is using data tags to evaluate acquisition targets and the company’s competitive position:
We’re working with a third-party company right now to use their software to build out a peer set of companies with certain metrics that we look at in the restaurant industry for the purposes of setting up templates and data for when we perform our annual Goodwill impairment analysis. It also helps us to understand certain transaction multiples. We pay close attention to what’s going on in our industry. Why certain brands traded at different multiples is not necessarily apparent at the outset.
Being able to use XBRL data to normalize the company, looking at the strength of their balance sheet, the strength of their revenues, their profitability metrics, things like that, really starts to get a sense of what our company is truly worth. We’re a public company. But, oftentimes, there is intrinsic value that might not be captured by the market. As we look either into acquiring other companies or what we look like in the market, using XBRL data is extremely helpful in being able to do those analyses.
Also, our note disclosures and financial statements are compared across our industry using software that provides search function on XBRL filings. So, for example, when I have something come up in a certain quarter and we’ve never had to disclose it before, I go out and search through XBRL filings to find similar companies within our industry that have had to present certain similar things in the past. And that really helps me in crafting our disclosures to make sure that we’re complying with the spirit of GAAP and providing the information that we’re supposed to be providing.
Here’s another tip from Paul: moving away from narrative disclosure in 10-Qs and 10-Ks and more toward a tabular format doesn’t just make the report easier to read for normal humans – it also makes it easier (and presumably less expensive) to add the XBRL tags.
Today is the “Proxy Disclosure Conference”; tomorrow is the “16th Annual Executive Compensation Conference.” Note you can still register to watch online by using your credit card and getting an ID/pw kicked out automatically to you without having to interface with our staff. Both Conferences are paired together; two Conferences for the price of one.
– How to Attend by Video Webcast: If you are registered to attend online, just go to the home page of TheCorporateCounsel.net or CompensationStandards.com to watch it live or by archive (note that it will take about a day to post the video archives after it’s shown live). A prominent link called “Enter the Conference Here” – on the home pages of those sites – will take you directly to today’s Conference (and on the top of that Conference page, you will select a link matching the video player on your computer: HTML5 or Flash Player). Here are the “Course Materials.”
Remember to use the ID and password that you received for the Conferences (which may not be your normal ID/password for TheCorporateCounsel.net or CompensationStandards.com). If you are experiencing technical problems, follow these webcast troubleshooting tips. Here is today’s conference agenda; times are Central.
– How to Earn CLE Online: Please read these “FAQs about Earning CLE” carefully to see if that is possible for you to earn CLE for watching online – and if so, how to accomplish that. Remember you will first need to input your Bar number(s) and that you will need to click on the periodic “prompts” all throughout each Conference to earn credit. Both Conferences will be available for CLE credit in all states except for a few – but hours for each state vary; see this “List: CLE Credit By State.”
10b-5 Liability: Exec Gets Sanctioned for “Failure to Correct”
Earlier this year, John blogged that the US Supreme Court gave the SEC a big win when it held – in Lorenzo v. SEC – that individual anti-fraud liability can apply under Rules 10b-5(a) and (c) to someone who “disseminates” false or misleading statements, even if that person didn’t “make” the statement under Rule 10b-5(b). Now, the 10th Circuit has become the first circuit court to apply Lorenzo – and it couldn’t have gone much better for the SEC. This Arnold & Porter memo explains the facts of this case – Malouf v. SEC:
Dennis Malouf served as an executive at both a securities brokerage and an investment adviser. He subsequently sold his interest in the brokerage in a transaction in which he continued to receive installment payments based on the commissions the brokerage collected from securities sales. Malouf facilitated these installment payments by routing client trades through the brokerage without disclosing his financial interest to clients or to the investment adviser and despite knowing that the investment adviser represented that Malouf did not have any conflicts of interest.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) brought an enforcement action against Malouf, and the Tenth Circuit affirmed an administrative law judge’s finding that Malouf had violated Exchange Act Rules 10b-5(a) and (c) and Sections 17(a)(1) and (a)(3) of the Securities Act. The Tenth Circuit reasoned that Malouf had engaged in an unlawful fraudulent scheme because he knew that a conflict existed while the investment adviser was telling clients that he was independent and, despite this knowledge, failed to take steps to correct the misstatements or to disclose the conflict. The Tenth Circuit rejected Malouf’s argument that the SEC had “obliterated[d] the distinction” between Rule 10b-5 subsections (b) on one hand and (a) and (c) on the other because, as the Court in Lorenzo expressly held, defendants could be liable under sections of the Securities Act and Rule 10b-5 dealing with fraudulent schemes in connection with misstatements without having been the “maker” of misstatements.
Malouf was fined $75,000, had to disgorge $562,000 in profits, and is now barred for life from working in the securities industry. To me, it seems pretty clear that someone should correct known misstatements about their own conflicts – and if you dig into the facts of this case, you’ll see that the defendant was also involved with causing the misstatement in the first place. But, this wasn’t a slam dunk case for the SEC since there’s still some uncertainty around how Lorenzo will be applied. The memo notes that the holding gives the SEC even more encouragement to pursue anti-fraud charges against individuals who aren’t “makers” of statements. We don’t know yet whether plaintiffs will try to extend these theories to private class actions. . .
Delaware Company Adopts “Gender Quota” Bylaw
A Delaware-incorporated company that’s headquartered in California has filed a Form 8-K to report adoption of a “board diversity” bylaw. The 8-K says that the company took this step to implement the requirements of SB 826, the California law that requires female representation on boards. This blog from Allen Matkins’ Keith Bishop dives into the details:
The Bylaw operates by dividing NantKwest’s board into two classes. To be qualified for a “Class 2 Directorship”, the individual must self-identify her gender as a woman, without regard to her designated sex at birth. Consonant with SB 826, the number of Class 2 Directorships will eventually depend upon the “number of directors”. All directorships that are not Class 2 Directorships are Class 1 Directorships.
Keith highlights that nothing in SB 826 requires companies to amend their bylaws – and that doing so might cause issues under California’s Civil Rights Act. He also raises a few questions about how this particular bylaw will operate.
If you’re looking to meld with your couch this holiday weekend, Matt Kelly has identified the best shows and films about corporate compliance, business ethics and regulatory issues (and since he published this, Homecoming also came out – which I knew Matt would also endorse, and he’s now informed me that he devoted an entire separate post to it). Binge-watching these definitely can be justified as “work-related.” Here’s the criteria for the lists:
Several weeks ago I posted a question on LinkedIn: What are some of the best representations of corporate compliance, business ethics, or regulatory issues that you’ve ever seen?
My only requirements were that the shows be fictional, and portray a legal business behaving in a corrupt manner (rather than an illegal business like a drug cartel). The response was overwhelming — nearly 28,000 views of the post in less than a week, plus dozens of suggestions.
