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In the latest Deep Dive with Dave Podcast, Brinkley Dickerson from Troutman Pepper joins me for an MD&A Workshop. With the SEC’s significant changes to MD&A now in effect for this reporting season, it is a great time to get a handle on how to tackle those changes and improve the overall quality of your MD&A.

– Dave Lynn

Liz recently blogged about EY’s 10th annual survey of audit committee disclosures, and now the Center for Audit Quality is out with its 8th annual Audit Committee Transparency Barometer. All of this tracking of audit committee disclosures is indicative of the fact that the audit committee’s role in oversight of financial reporting and the auditors is still very much of interest to investors, including disclosure that goes above and beyond the bare minimum required by the SEC.

CAQ’s analysis focused on disclosures of audit committee oversight in proxy statements of companies in the S&P Composite 1500. Overall, the CAQ observed slight increases with some stagnation among disclosures that have been tracked over the years. The one big exception is cybersecurity – the CAQ indicates that disclosure regarding the audit committee’s oversight of cybersecurity increased by 5 to 7 percentage points among S&P 500 companies each year since 2016.

The most common disclosures that CAQ observed in 2021 continue to be related to non-audit services and potential impact to independence, auditor tenure, criteria considered to evaluate the audit firm and involvement in audit partner selection. Moderate levels of disclosure were observed on the topics of oversight of cybersecurity, engagement partner rotation, considerations when appointing the auditor, and stating the evaluation of the auditor occurs at least annually. The lowest rates of disclosure involve the audit committee’s negotiation of auditor fees, an explanation of changes in auditor fees, consideration of fees in the context of audit quality and disclosure of significant areas addressed with the auditor. The CAQ indicates that these areas present the greatest opportunity for increased transparency by the audit committee.

– Dave Lynn

The SEC’s Investor Advisory Committee is set to meet tomorrow, and on the agenda is a deep dive into digital assets. The agenda notes:

The panel will explore the intersection of digital assets and investor protection, with a specific lens on the regulatory framework covering digital assets, market structure issues, and defining risk in emerging technologies. Additional covered topics include blockchain technologies, crypto-based EFTs, and stablecoins.

In the afternoon, the Investor Advisory Committee plans to address the SEC’s potential role in addressing elder financial abuse issues.

– Dave Lynn

We have posted the December issue of our complimentary monthly email newsletter. Sign up today to receive it by simply entering your email address.

– Dave Lynn

I often lament that one day the robots will be coming for my job (perhaps I watched a little too much Westworld), and we may just be a little bit closer with the SEC’s new exempt offering navigator. The Staff in the Office of the Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation has been doing a great job of expanding the resources available to small business seeking capital, and the navigator is one part of that effort. The capital-raising landscape for smaller companies can be daunting, with the patchwork of exempt offering alternatives making it difficult to figure out which exemption works best for a company’s needs. What the Staff has done with the navigator is to steer companies to the most relevant resources, based on answers to a series of straightforward questions.

The navigator pages are careful to note that the information provided is neither a legal interpretation nor a statement of SEC policy, and that if someone has questions, they should consult with an attorney who specializes in securities law. I think this sort of tool can be very helpful to inform entrepreneurs about their potential capital-raising paths so that they can have informed conversations with their lawyers when deciding how to raise capital. I encourage everyone to take a spin through the navigator today!

– Dave Lynn

It is hard to believe that the CPA-Zicklin Index is celebrating its ten-year anniversary. The index, which is a joint collaboration between the Center for Political Accountability (CPA) and The Carol and Lawrence Zicklin Center for Business Ethics Research at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, has been benchmarking political spending at the largest companies since the Supreme Court decided the Citizens United case in 2010. Today, the CPA-Zicklin Index benchmarks the political spending practices of the S&P 500 companies.

Some key trends from this year’s CPA-Zicklin Index are:

• The number of S&P 500 companies with policies for general board oversight of political spending is 295, up 13.9 percent from 259 companies in 2020;
• Companies with board committee review of direct political contributions and expenditures increased to 217 this year, up 9 percent from 199 in 2020;
• Companies with board committee review of payments to trade associations and other tax-exempt groups increased to 196 companies this year, up 11.4 percent from 176 in 2020;
• The number of companies that fully or partially disclosed their political spending in 2021 or that prohibited at least one type of spending is 370, representing over 75 percent of the S&P 500 companies evaluated and a record high since this tracking began;
• The number of companies that fully or partially disclosed their political payments to state or local candidates or committees, or that prohibited them, was 334, another high;
• The number of companies that disclosed some or all of their political spending was 293; and
• The number of companies that prohibited direct donations to state and local candidates, political parties, and committees was 136.

The CPA-Zicklin Index also highlights some of the most-improved companies, as well as the companies that is considers “basement dwellers,” and includes some very insightful perspectives on the political spending environment today.

– Dave Lynn

One of the key risks that we often consider when addressing any disclosure or corporate governance issue is whether the outcome could expose the company and its officers and directors to securities class action litigation. My MoFo colleague Judson Lobdell recently published this very helpful Summary Guide to Securities Class Action Litigation, which does a great job of walking through the legal bases for such claims, the risk factors that can lead to litigation, and the action items that companies should prioritize both before and after the threat of litigation arises. This resource, along with many other related resources, are highlighted in MoFo’s Above Board resource center, which provides relevant resources that are specifically curated for directors and senior management.

– Dave Lynn

Nasdaq is proposing to adopt alternative initial and continued listing requirements for SPACs listing on the Nasdaq Global Market. Nasdaq notes in its proposal that, historically, SPACs chose to list on the Nasdaq Capital Market instead of the Nasdaq Global Market, in part, because it had lower fees and lower initial distribution requirements; however, nothing in NASDAQ’s rules prohibits a SPAC from listing on the Nasdaq Global Market. The SEC’s recent actions on SPAC accounting have prompted some SPACs to seek to list on the Nasdaq Global Market, because, as a result of recent accounting changes, the SPACs no longer have sufficient equity to qualify for initial listing on the Nasdaq Capital Market.

The focus of the Nasdaq rule proposal is on Listing Rules 5405 and 5450, which require all companies (including SPACs) listing on the Nasdaq Global Market to have at least 400 round lot holders for initial listing and 400 total holders for continued listing, respectively. Nasdaq proposes to adopt alternative listing requirements that would allow SPACs to initially list their primary equity security (other than an ADR) on the Nasdaq Global Market with at least 300 round lot holders, and remain listed if they have at least 300 public stockholders, provided that they meet certain additional requirements for initial and continued listing. Nasdaq also proposes to adopt continued listing standards for SPACs that initially listed under the proposed alternative standard and align them with the proposed initial listing standards.

– Dave Lynn

While we certainly had a lot to be thankful for over the Thanksgiving holiday, we also received the disturbing news that a new variant of COVID-19 named Omicron could dash our hopes for a return to “normal” anytime soon. I am beginning to question what “normal” is, and obviously the concept of “new normal” takes on a whole new meaning if we have to embrace another round of public health measures to combat the latest variant as we approach two full years into this global pandemic.

Among the many things that have not been normal throughout this pandemic has been the amount of whistleblower complaints. In this Cooley memo, a huge spike in whistleblower claims is noted on both sides of the Atlantic. In the US, the SEC reported that it paid out more in whistleblower awards in fiscal year 2021 than in all prior years combined since the whistleblower program began in 2011, while the trend in Europe was similar, with two notable whistleblower protection charities there reporting an increase of up to 40% in the number of whistleblowing complaints in 2020-21 when compared to previous years.

The memo notes:

COVID-19 itself is a major contributor to these growing whistleblower numbers. With many employees working from home, they may feel less connected to their employers and colleagues and more inclined to reach out to the authorities without first raising allegations to their employer (for example, by way of the confidential whistleblowing hotline maintained by the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK). In addition, whistleblowers may also find it easier to anonymously collect information relevant to their complaints when they have access to these materials from home.

We have been closely following the trends in whistleblower activity and you can expect a webcast on this topic early next year. Stay tuned for the announcement!

– Dave Lynn

In this latest Deep Dive with Dave Podcast, Keir Gumbs from Broadridge Financial Solutions joins me to discuss the ins and outs of Staff Legal Bulletin No. 14L. As the shareholder proposal season goes into full swing, we talk about the Staff’s change to the approach on the “ordinary business” basis for exclusion and other notable guidance from the latest Staff Legal Bulletin.

– Dave Lynn