Last month, Corp Fin’s Office of Small Business Policy issued no-action relief to a company from the requirement to file an annual report on Form 1-K under Regulation A – despite the fact that the company didn’t qualify for...more
AI note-taking is today’s topic du jour. The first thing to know about this topic is that you need to experience it for yourself to see why it’s so attractive. (I’ll run a blog soon summarizing how AI note-taking works in...more
Personally, I’m sick of hearing about the Coldplay jumbotron scandal. But it does illustrate that it’s inevitable in a company’s life that there will be unexpected crises, and they are not fun if you’re someone who has to...more
Last week, ISS launched its latest annual ‘Global Benchmark Policy Survey’ – responses are due by August 22nd. Here are the primary questions (I didn’t include the multiple-choice answers)...more
7/29/2025
/ Artificial Intelligence ,
Board of Directors ,
Corporate Governance ,
Directors ,
Diversity ,
Executive Compensation ,
Institutional Investors ,
Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) ,
Risk Management ,
Shareholder Proposals ,
Shareholders
Last week, COSO withdrew its public exposure draft for a corporate governance framework just a month after it was proposed. This was a set of FAQs about it that was posted when the proposal first was made....more
Recently, I blogged about the 20 Corp Fin Directors we’ve had at the SEC (we haven’t heard yet who will be the new Corp Fin Director) – and it got me thinking about Manny Cohen, whom many of us don’t know much about since he...more
The survey results from this “What Directors Think” publication from Corporate Board Member, Diligent Institute and FTI Consulting are based on the thoughts of more than 200 US public company directors. Here are a dozen...more
A few days ago, Corp Fin revised a total of 18 CDIs related to Schedule 13Ds and 13Gs, mainly to align them with the changes to the rules related to those Schedules made back in October ’23. The CDIs are redlined by Corp Fin...more
Recently, Nevada passed new legislation (AB 239) to amend the Nevada Revised Statutes to provide a number of statutory liability protections, including de-emphasizing the use of Delaware case law in interpreting Nevada law....more
Recently, BlackRock released its “2024 Investment Stewardship Annual Report” – here’s a 25-page executive summary. Here are six lessons learned – although note this is all about last year; not the latest proxy season...more
A few weeks ago, Corp Fin revised two – and withdrew one – of the Legal Proceedings CDIs under Item 103 of Regulation S-K. These CDI changes are catching up to the reorg of Item 103 that the SEC made five years ago when the...more
Last month, I blogged that the PCAOB may be absorbed by the SEC under the budget reconciliation bill that is making its way towards the finish line. In that blog, I indicated that the only thing that might stop the merger of...more
Last week, Vanguard issued this statement announcing a plan to split its investment management and stewardship functions into these two wholly-owned investment advisors, perhaps to help manage its growth per this Morningstar...more
Recently, the Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 2337 (SB 2337) in an effort to regulate proxy advisors – including ISS and Glass Lewis – when they provide proxy voting recommendations for those companies that are either...more
6/23/2025
/ Corporate Governance ,
Glass Lewis ,
Investors ,
New Legislation ,
Proposed Legislation ,
Proxy Advisors ,
Publicly-Traded Companies ,
Regulatory Reform ,
Shareholder Proposals ,
Shareholders ,
Texas
If you’re attending the ‘Society of Corporate Governance’ Conference in Colorado in a few weeks, look for one of our Cooley people – including me – so that you can procure one of our nifty “proxy season wristbands.” You can...more
Last week, the SEC issued a notice of formal withdrawal for 14 proposed rulemakings that were issued a few years ago – these rules were never adopted. The only Corp Fin rulemaking in this group was this proposal from 2022...more
As I blogged last month, the SEC is holding a half-day roundtable on Thursday, June 26th to consider whether the SEC’s executive pay disclosure requirements need updating. At the time, the public was invited to submit...more
A few days ago, I blogged about the SEC issuing this 71-page concept release to rethink the definition of “foreign private issuer.” This Cooley Alert penned by Brad Goldberg, Beth Sasfai, Reid Hooper and Shari Ness delves...more
Last week, the SEC issued this 71-page concept release to rethink the definition of “foreign private issuer” and determine which companies should get the benefits of reporting under the FPI reporting framework. Here’s the...more
Recently, the SEC released a trio of reports from the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis (DERA) that provide a host of stats about Regulation A and Regulation Crowdfunding offerings, as well as beneficial ownership of...more
Recently, the PCAOB released its annual recap of its conversations with audit committee chairs. This past year, the PCAOB staff interviewed 272 audit committee chairs to come up with its findings, 78% of whom chaired a...more
As noted in this Reuters article, a recent PwC and The Conference Board survey found that...more
As we await word as to who the next Corp Fin Director is, I thought it might be useful to investigate where these folks typically hail from. Below is an analysis of this list of Corp Fin Directors that I created long ago on...more
As noted in this WSJ article, the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission recently raised concerns in a “joint statement of interest” that large asset managers – including the “Big Three” of BlackRock, Vanguard and...more
We’ve blogged multiple times about how you should prepare to transition to the SEC’s new “EDGAR Next” platform (here’s our latest post). We are now in that transition period where some companies are voluntarily enrolling in...more