Daily Compliance News: August 5, 2025, The Staying Focused Edition
Five Tips for a New Public Company Director
Everything Compliance: Shout Outs and Rants: Episode 156
Daily Compliance News: June 17, 2025, The JBS Goes Public Edition
Everything Compliance: Episode 155, To Tesla and Beyond Edition
Everything Compliance: Shout Outs and Rants - Episode 155
Compliance into the Weeds: Of Wal-Mart, Tariffs and Stakeholder Capitalism
Daily Compliance News: May 15, 2025, The Downfall in Davos Edition
Daily Compliance News: March 28, 2025, The Cave or Go To Trial Edition
FCPA Compliance Report: Celebrating the 2025 World’s Most Ethical Companies: Highlights with Erica Salmon Byrne
The SEC's Reach Beyond Publicly Traded Companies
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Raising Capital 101: A Securities Podcast - What is a Public Offering?
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Raising Capital 101: A Securities Podcast - What Are the Differences Between Private & Public Offerings?
“Monsters, Inc.” y el buen gobierno corporativo
Meeting the Proposed SEC Climate Disclosure Requirements
The Justice Insiders Podcast - Human Beings: Cybersecurity's Most Fragile Attack Surface
JONES DAY TALKS®: Court Grants Stay on SEC’s Climate Disclosure Rule, but Companies Should Continue Preparations
Equity Award Delegations for Publicly Traded Companies — The Consumer Finance Podcast
SEC’s New Cyber Rules for Publicly Traded Companies — The Consumer Finance Podcast
PLI's inSecurities Podcast - Commissioner Uyeda on “the Perils of Regulation by Theory and Hypothesis”
Almost overnight, generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has become ubiquitous in numerous aspects of life, both personal and work-related. Nearly all major law firms have begun to explore and, in many instances, have...more
A recent monumental decision of the Delaware Supreme Court (Court), dubbed a “first-of-it-kind” ruling by Bloomberg Law, provides clarity for both public companies looking to amend their bylaws and shareholder activists who...more
In Kellner v. AIM ImmunoTech, the Delaware Court of Chancery held that certain advance notice bylaw provisions were invalid. While the decision engages in a fact-specific analysis of many aspects of AIM ImmunoTech’s advance...more
Hi In “a tale of wins and losses on both sides,” the Delaware Court of Chancery reiterated that advance notice bylaws adopted amid an approaching proxy contest are reviewed through the lens of enhanced judicial scrutiny to...more
With the 2023 proxy season now over for most companies, we took a fresh look at recent bylaw and charter amendments at the Silicon Valley 150 (the SV150) to better understand how companies are addressing i) new Rule 14a-19,...more
A multitude of questions over who must approve the grant of equity awards frequently arise when designing equity compensation programs. Do shareholders need to approve the grant? Is approval from the Board of Directors...more
Shareholder meetings held this year are subject to new rules that require both companies and activist shareholders to use “universal” proxy cards in contested board elections. Until now, the company and the dissident...more
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) new universal proxy rules, which took effect for meetings after August 31, 2022, require the use of “universal” proxy cards in all director election contests, except for...more
As discussed in our November 17, 2021 post, management of public companies are required to use universal proxy cards for shareholder meetings involving most election contests held after August 31, 2022. This means that both...more
On June 16, 2022, Vice Chancellor Lori W. Will of the Delaware Court of Chancery granted declaratory judgment in favor of plaintiffs — four members of the board of Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings, Inc. (the “Company”), including...more
Earlier this year the United States Courts of Appeals for the Seventh and Ninth Circuits each addressed the question of whether an exclusive forum provision adopted by a Delaware company and requiring derivative litigation...more
Recently, some companies have taken the position that they do not have a principal executive office in their filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. I noticed, for example, that the Form 8-K filed by Activision...more
Many public companies conduct periodic corporate governance reviews as they prepare for year-end, preferably on a “clear day” where the absence of a threat can support a lower standard of judicial scrutiny for bylaw changes. ...more
As previously discussed in our Sept. 10, 2020, client alert, in Wong v. Restoration Robotics, Inc., Case No. 18-CIV-02609 (Cal. Super. Ct. Sept. 1, 2020), the Superior Court of California for the County of San Mateo dismissed...more
Institutional Shareholder Services (“ISS”) published its proxy voting guidelines updates for 2021 (“Policy Updates”) on November 12, 2020. The changes that are likely to be of most interest to companies include new and...more
As COVID-19 rages on, companies are again flocking to virtual annual meetings for the 2021 proxy season, but with one important difference: the luxury of time. Many companies are already exploring retention of virtual annual...more
Seven years ago, I posited that forum selection clauses that specify the Delaware Court of Chancery were susceptible to being challenged as impermissible waivers of the right to a jury trial under California's Constitution...more
Regardless of size or industry, thoughtful director appointment is critical to the success of any public company. Yet following the departure of a director, many boards are left scrambling to locate and onboard a suitable...more
As public companies continue to navigate the ongoing economic upheaval caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, opportunistic activist investors may find the resulting economic conditions conducive to accumulating significant...more
With annual reports on Form 10-K publicly filed and first quarter earnings releases getting underway, proxy season – the annual practice of filing and distributing proxy statements, reserving meeting venues and courting...more
The novel coronavirus, COVID-19, is impacting every aspect of doing business, and annual meetings of shareholders are no exception. Each corporation is required by state corporation law, and usually its own bylaws, to hold...more
As social distancing policies and mandates continue to take hold across the country, companies are grappling to understand the implications of these measures on their business. One compliance issue to resolve is that...more
In response to developments related to COVID-19, the Securities and Exchange Commission has issued new guidance (available here) to assist public companies, investment companies, shareholders, and other market participants...more
I live and work in the Seattle area. As a result of COVID-19, school districts are now closed for 6 weeks, Seattle public libraries are closed for a month, a number of restaurants have closed for the time being and my beloved...more
In a previous blog post, we discussed the availability of virtual shareholder meetings (i.e., “virtual-only” and “hybrid” meetings) as a potential alternative to the traditional in-person meeting during the 2020 proxy season...more