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

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

The regulation of political speech, including the regulation of contributions and spending, is one of the most constitutionally delicate operations in which the government can engage. As the Supreme Court stated in Buckley v. Valeo, “[Political] contribution and expenditure limitations operate in an area of the most fundamental First Amendment activities. . . . [T]he First and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee ‘freedom to associate with others for the common advancement of political beliefs and ideas.’” The same is true of “compelled disclosure,” which the Court has noted “in itself[] can seriously infringe on privacy of association and belief guaranteed by the First Amendment.”

Given these important First Amendment concerns, and wary of creating the actuality or appearance of partisan advantage, Congress has entrusted interpretation and enforcement of the campaign finance laws to the Federal Election Commission (FEC). This agency is unique in a number of ways. Perhaps most fundamentally, it includes six commissioners evenly divided between the two major parties. Furthermore, having been the defendant in many of the most important First Amendment lawsuits of the past 40 years, it has considerable expertise in dealing with the intricate intersection of campaign finance regulation and constitutional liberties.

…continue reading: The Non-Expert Agency: Using the SEC to Regulate Partisan Politics

There are two main sources of confusion in the public corporate governance debate. One is the confusion about the role of public policy in corporate governance. The other is a lack of empirical knowledge among commentators about the corporate landscape and the way that today’s stock markets influence the conditions for exercising long term and value creating corporate governance. This paper tries to mitigate some of this confusion and to increase awareness in both respects.

In terms of public policy it is important to understand that the general corporate governance discussion usually takes place on two different levels. And both are legitimate. One is concerned with the everyday workings of individual companies: how they organize their internal procedures, staff their company organs and build their corporate culture. Much of this is unique to the company in question. The choices to be made are often a matter of business judgment and are seldom in a domain where policy makers and regulators have any specific expertise.

…continue reading: Who Cares? Corporate Governance in Today’s Equity Markets

Companies that fail to file a 10-K or 10-Q on time are required by SEC Rule 12b-25 to file a Form NT (NT for non-timely), which provides a narrative explanation for the late filing. No analogous rule exists for earnings announcements, which often precede 10-K or 10-Q filings. For companies that are unable to report earnings by their expected date, therefore, managers face a decision – to keep silent or announce the delay. The SEC has also manifested interest in earnings delays: it recently announced a quantitative model that is expected to supply potential leads to its Division of Enforcement and lists earnings delays as a signal of earnings management.

In our paper, How Do Investors Interpret Announcements of Earnings Delays?, which was recently accepted for publication in the Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, we show that announcements of a delay in the reporting of earnings produce an average one-day abnormal stock return of approximately -6%. So, although announcements of a delay in the reporting of earnings are infrequent, they tend to be associated with a considerable reduction in firm value. In addition, delays precipitated by accounting issues or lacking an explanation result in more negative market reactions than delays related to business events, implementation of new accounting standards, or non-business reasons such as bad weather.

…continue reading: How Do Investors Interpret Announcements of Earnings Delays?

It should rapidly become clear that my remarks belong only to me because I will be talking about the role of the SEC in an increasingly global financial and regulatory system from the viewpoint of a Chair on Day 18 of her tenure. Already, I find myself emphasizing to some outside the agency that the international aspect of the SEC’s role is not a distraction from our important core domestic duties. Rather, that role must be understood in order to fully appreciate the agency’s whole mission – to protect investors, maintain fair, orderly and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation.

And it’s how we’re furthering that mission through our international efforts that I will speak about today.

…continue reading: Regulation in a Global Financial System

The staff of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“Commission” or “SEC”) is planning to hold an SRO Outreach Conference (the “Conference”) this month. In anticipation of the Conference, I would like to address the challenges faced by self-regulatory organizations (“SROs”) as a result of the significant changes that the securities markets have undergone in the last decade, and the need for robust Commission oversight of SRO activities to enhance investor protection, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation.

The roles of SROs have a long tradition in our securities markets. As a practitioner in the securities industry for over 30 years, I’ve interacted with SROs as a member of the private sector as well as a Commissioner. I fully appreciate their role in the regulation of our marketplace by setting standards, conducting examinations, and enforcing rules among their members.

…continue reading: The Need for Robust SEC Oversight of SROs

Today [May 1, 2013], the Commission considers issuing a release proposing rules and interpretive guidance applicable to certain market intermediaries, participants, clearing agencies, data repositories, and trade execution facilities that are involved in cross-border transactions of security-based swaps. The proposed release is over 1,000 pages, contains over 2,000 footnotes, and requests comments on more than 630 questions with many subparts. Although the questions posed are many, they are intended to be balanced and fair to solicit views from all sides. This is a welcome approach, because it contributes to a healthy debate and dialogue that is vital to the Commission’s processes.

Today, the Commission also votes to reopen the comment period on the various outstanding rulemaking releases and policy statement concerning security-based swaps and market participants to allow the public additional time to analyze and provide comments in light of our cross-border release.

The length of the cross-border release and the reopening of the comment periods reflect the complexity and importance of the issues involved in securities-based swap transactions. In issuing today’s proposal and asking for comments on the Commission’s proposed approach to regulating the securities-based swap market, the Commission recognizes the interactions among many important rules in this area. It is important, therefore, that our rules avoid gaps and loopholes, and that they work together to provide the needed transparency, accountability, and protection to our economy, the markets, and, most importantly, to investors.

…continue reading: Proposed Rules for Global Derivatives Market