I strongly support the Commission’s effort to evaluate ways to improve our credit ratings system. Effective oversight of Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations (“NRSROs”) is critical to ensuring accurate ratings and promoting investor confidence.

As an SEC Commissioner, I have focused singularly on how the SEC can best serve the needs of investors. It is clear that the role played by credit rating agencies can have an impact on the integrity of our markets and investor confidence. [1]

Today’s roundtable and the Commission’s December 2012 Report to Congress on Assigned Credit Ratings are direct outgrowths of industry practices that permitted inaccurate ratings to undermine the securities market and the integrity of the credit ratings industry. [2]

…continue reading: Addressing Conflicts of Interest in the Credit Ratings Industry

Yesterday the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) proposed rules and interpretive guidance regarding the application of the U.S. regulatory regime to cross-border security-based swap (“SBS”) transactions. The proposals also address the impact of cross-border SBS transactions on the registration obligations of security-based swap dealers (“SBSDs”), major security-based swap participants (“MSBSPs”), SBS clearing agencies, SBS execution facilities and SBS swap data repositories (“SDRs”).

The proposed rules also would establish a framework of “substituted compliance” under which certain participants in the SBS market may comply with non-U.S. regulatory regimes that the SEC determines to be comparable with U.S. requirements, in lieu of the rules that would otherwise apply to these participants. The proposed rules will be open for comment for 90 days after the date of their publication in the Federal Register.

The SEC separately voted to reopen, for 60 days, the comment period for all rules relating to Title VII of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (“Dodd-Frank”) that are not yet final. This 60-day comment period also applies to the related SEC policy statement describing the expected order for these rules to take effect.

The proposing release is more than 600 pages long and requests public comment on numerous topics. This post provides a preliminary outline of a few key aspects of the proposals. We will publish a more detailed memorandum on the proposed rules and interpretive guidance shortly.

…continue reading: SEC Publishes Proposed Rules Regarding Cross-Border Security-Based Swap Transactions

There has been an exponential growth in interest in comparative company law in recent years. For example, in the period from 2002 to 2011, no fewer than ten monographs or edited collections were published exploring this new field of enquiry. The burgeoning literature was mirrored by an increase in University Postgraduate courses or programs in comparative company law and corporate governance. Moreover, the dissolution of trade barriers and mass cross-border capital flows engendered by the forces of competition and globalization have necessitated legal practitioners to be conversant with the company laws of jurisdictions other than their own.

In Mathias Siems and David Cabrelli (eds.), Comparative Company Law: A Case Based Approach, Hart Publishing, 2013 (publisher’s website; introduction on SSRN) we have aimed to fill an important gap in this field. Existing books on comparative company law tend to focus on the institutional structure of the corporation but this approach risks overlooking specific cases and how the issues arising from disputes are resolved in different jurisdictions. For example, topics related to directors’ liability, creditor protection and shareholders’ rights may best be understood by analyzing how selected hypothetical cases would be solved in different countries.

…continue reading: Comparative Company Law: Case Based Approach

Throughout my tenure as an SEC Commissioner, I have spoken out repeatedly on the subject of diversity – and the benefits it can bring to our economy. I strongly believe in the importance of diversity and inclusion. I continue to be deeply concerned with the lack of significant progress in the recruitment, retention, and promotion of women and persons of color – whether in corporate boardrooms, Wall Street, or at my own agency, the SEC.

Today, although much of what I will say applies equally to other forms of diversity such as race and ethnicity, I will focus my remarks on the important issue of gender diversity in corporate America – particularly:

• The wealth of talent and positive impact of gender diversity;
• The dismal lack of progress in increasing gender diversity on corporate boards; and
• Improving disclosures about diversity, or the lack thereof.

…continue reading: Merely Cracking the Glass Ceiling is Not Enough

Companies commonly supplement their reported earnings under U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) with non-GAAP financial measures that they believe more accurately reflect their results of operations or financial position or that are commonly used by investors to evaluate performance. A non-GAAP financial measure is a numerical measure of a company’s historical or future financial performance, financial position or cash flows that includes or excludes amounts from the most directly comparable GAAP measure. Non-GAAP financial measures are used by companies to bridge the divide between corporate reporting that is standardized under GAAP and reporting that is tailored to a particular industry or circumstance.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) permits companies to present non-GAAP financial measures in their public disclosures as well as registration statements filed under the Securities Act of 1933 (Securities Act) and periodic reports filed under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (Exchange Act), subject to compliance with Regulation G and Item 10(e) of Regulation S-K (Item 10(e)). These regulations were adopted to ensure that investors are provided with financial information that is fulsome and not misleading.

…continue reading: Disclosure of Non-GAAP Financial Measures

In September 2008, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) temporarily banned most short sales in nearly 1,000 financial stocks. In our paper, Shackling Short Sellers: The 2008 Shorting Ban, forthcoming in the Review of Financial Studies, we examine the ban’s effect on market quality, shorting activity, the aggressiveness of short sellers, and stock prices. For the most part, financial economists consider short sellers to be the “good guys,” unearthing overvalued companies and contributing to efficient stock prices. Even as late as the summer of 2007, regulators in the United States seemed to share this view, as they made life easier for short sellers by repealing the New York Stock Exchange’s (NYSE’s) uptick rule and other short-sale price tests that had impeded shorting activity since the Great Depression (see Boehmer, Jones, and Zhang (2009) for an analysis of this event). However, short sellers are often the scapegoats when share prices fall sharply, and regulators in the United States did a sharp U-turn in 2008, imposing tight new restrictions on short sellers as the financial crisis worsened. In September 2008, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) surprised the investment community by adopting an emergency order that temporarily banned most short sales in nearly 1,000 financial stocks. In this paper, we study changes in various liquidity measures, the rate of short sales, the aggressiveness of short sellers, and in stock prices before, during, and after the shorting ban. We compare banned stocks to a control group of nonbanned stocks to identify these effects.

…continue reading: Shackling Short Sellers: The 2008 Shorting Ban

This post describes the results produced so far during the 2013 proxy season as a result of the work that the Shareholder Rights Project (SRP) has done on behalf of SRP-represented clients. Thus far, this work has already resulted in the following 2013 outcomes:

• 19 boards of S&P 500 and Fortune 500 companies declassified following the adoption of agreed-upon management proposals at 2013 annual meetings; and
• 13 precatory proposals passed at the 2013 annual meetings of S&P 500 and Fortune 500 companies, with an average support of 78%.

Further details about these results (including lists of all the relevant S&P 500 and Fortune 500 companies) are provided below. We note that these results add to those obtained during 2012 in which the work of the SRP and SRP-represented investors resulted in:

…continue reading: SRP Mid-Proxy-Season Results: 19 Boards Declassified, 13 Precatory Declassification Proposals Passed

Takeovers remain the most controversial corporate governance mechanism. According to pro-takeover commentators, takeovers are generally beneficial for corporate governance. Takeovers can displace poorly performing managers and facilitate corporate restructuring. From this perspective, regulation should encourage takeovers. On the opposite side of the debate, those who oppose hostile takeovers argue that they can disrupt well-functioning companies and encourage short-termism. From this point of view, policies that hamper takeovers are favored.

In our paper The Case for an Unbiased Takeover Law (with an Application to the European Union), we reject a categorical pro- or anti-takeover position. While hostile and friendly takeovers may be efficient in the aggregate, individual takeovers and individual companies’ exposure thereto are efficient or inefficient depending on a variety of factors. These factors include the production functions of companies, the conditions in the relevant industry, the problems confronting the corporation and the best response to those problems. Because these all may differ from company to company and over time, so also may the appropriate stance to takeovers differ. Consequently, we posit that takeover regulation should sanction the efforts by individual companies to devise a takeover regime appropriate to their own, mutable circumstances. In other words, takeover regulation should be limited to a set of optional rules.

…continue reading: The Case for an Unbiased Takeover Law

Exit consents are often used as a restructuring tool by issuers of bonds. Issuers invite bondholders to exchange their existing bonds for new bonds (usually with a lower principal amount). In order to participate in the exchange, bondholders must agree to vote in favour of a resolution that amends the terms of the existing bonds so as to negatively affect (or, in Assénagon, [1] substantially destroy) their value. This is referred to as ‘covenant-stripping’. If the issuer does not achieve the majority needed to pass the resolution, the covenant-strip and the exchange do not happen. But if the resolution is passed, each participating holder’s bonds are exchanged for the new bonds, and the terms of the old bonds are amended to remove most of the protective covenants. This incentivises bondholders to participate in the exchange: accepting the new bonds (even though they will usually have a lower face amount than the existing bonds) may be preferable to being ‘left behind’ in the old bonds, which will cease to have any meaningful covenant protection.

Facts of the case

Anglo Irish Bank Corporation Limited (the “Bank”) suffered severe financial difficulties as a result of the financial crisis, and was nationalised in January 2009. As part of its restructuring, the Bank proposed an exchange offer whereby:

…continue reading: Exit Consents in Restructurings – Still a Viable Option?

In a Director Note recently published, The Conference Board reviews current corporate practices on risk oversight by members of the board of directors of U.S. public companies. The study is based on findings from a survey of 359 SEC-registered business corporations conducted by The Conference Board in collaboration with NASDAQ OMX and NYSE Euronext. Data are categorized and analyzed according to 22 industry groups (using their Standard Industrial Classification, SIC, codes), seven annual revenue groups (based on data received from manufacturing and nonfinancial services companies) and five asset value groups (based on data reported by financial companies, which tend to use this type of benchmarking).

The publication details where the board assigns risk oversight responsibilities, whether it avails itself of dedicated reporting lines from senior management on risk issues, and the degree to which it adopts a standardized framework on enterprise risk management (ERM). Given the correlation between risk and strategy, data on the frequency and forms of strategic reviews is also presented.

The following are the main findings discussed in the study.

…continue reading: Risk in the Boardroom