In response to a statutory requirement, the SEC Staff of the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis (DERA) has issued a lengthy report to Congress on the combined impacts of the Dodd-Frank Act and other financial regulations on access to capital for consumers, investors and businesses and market liquidity.  DERA studied (a) capital raising in the primary markets by analyzing evidence on the evolution of the issuance of debt, equity and asset-backed securities across registered and exempt offerings and (b) secondary market liquidity by analyzing market activity and liquidity in corporate bonds and US treasuries, along with funds and investment companies that invest in those securities.
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The SEC’s proposed rules on pay ratio disclosure is again the focus of Congressional attention, as three members of the House, Congressional Progressive Caucus Co-Chairs Representatives Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) and Keith Ellison (D-MN), joined by Financial Services Committee member Maxine Waters (D-CA), sent a letter to the SEC asking them to finalize those rules.

The letter states that as Dodd-Frank was enacted more than four years ago, the SEC should finalize the rule since boards, investors and others “need this information to better understand and assess CEO compensation” when casting say-on-pay votes, and also “whether company employees are fairly compensated.”  The letter goes on to discuss ongoing concerns regarding the level of executive compensation.
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A federal district court in Texas recently upheld the right of the SEC to seek clawbacks of bonus and other compensation under Section 304 of Sarbanes-Oxley from executives who have not been accused of any wrongdoing, by denying the executives’ motion for summary judgment. In the case, SEC v. Baker, the SEC is seeking reimbursement of bonuses, incentives and compensation from the CEO and CFO of Arthrocare in connection with the company’s restatement of its financial statements. The restatements were due to alleged fraud by two senior vice presidents of Arthrocare. The SEC did not allege that the CEO and CFO committed any conscious wrongdoing.
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We just discussed the NYSE’s proposed standards applicable to compensation committee members and their advisers, which closely follow the SEC final rules. Nasdaq has posted its proposed version, which contains some differences worth mentioning. Details will follow in a client memorandum, but headline items include:

Compensation Committee Requirement

Nasdaq currently permits CEO and executive officer compensation to be determined by an independent compensation committee or independent directors constituting a majority of the board’s independent directors, but has proposed to eliminate the latter alternative and to require companies to have a standing compensation committee, with a minimum of at least two members.
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As we remarked back in August 2011, the SEC website with its rulemaking schedule on Dodd-Frank initiatives is changed with little notice, as it has been again.  Back in August 2011 we even speculated whether the corporate governance rules would apply to the 2012 proxy season, but the SEC did not meet most of its previously stated timeline with the exception of the rules on mine safety.  The current schedule for January to June 2012 is as follows:

Final rules:  (a) disclosure by institutional investor managers on how they voted on executive compensation; (b) listing standards on compensation committee independence and compensation advisers; and (c) disclosure on conflict minerals and by resource extraction issuers.
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We’ve been discussing with a number of clients whether it is appropriate to require employees to certify periodically that they are not aware of violations of the company’s code of conduct or, put another way, that they have reported to the company all violations of which they are aware.  Some companies believe that this requirement can be a useful complement to a compliance program in that it requires employees to focus on the issue.  Others have been concerned that it could generate a lot of noise in the form of false leads, creating an investigative burden that could actually complicate the record.
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Earlier this week, the SEC announced a settlement with the former CFO of Beazer Homes USA to clawback incentive compensation and profits from the sale of Beazer stock of more than $1.4 million pursuant to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.  Neither the CFO nor Beazer’s CEO, who reached a similar settlement with the SEC earlier this year for almost $6.5 million, was charged with personal misconduct.  Notably, the SEC blames Beazer’s chief accounting officer as the main perpetrator of the fraudulent actions that led to accounting restatements, but in accordance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the SEC could not seek recoupment from any officers other than the CEO and CFO. 
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The DC Circuit’s vacating of the SEC’s proxy access rule has wider applications for the possible challenge of regulations under the Dodd Frank Act on the grounds that they fail to analyze the economic impact.  Even though we all know that the DC circuit is especially hard on the SEC,  other agencies could also find themselves in a similar position given the fact that the speed of deadlines under the Dodd Frank Act has essentially forced a very minimal economic review of hundreds of regulations.  The court’s view that the SEC  “inconsistently and opportunistically framed the costs and benefits of the rule; failed adequately to quantify the certain costs or to explain why those costs could not be quantified; neglected to support its predictive judgments; contradicted itself; and failed to respond to substantial problems raised by commenters” is a warning shot across the bow of Dodd Frank implementation.
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Earlier this month, the SEC readopted rules to ensure that its current definition of “beneficial ownership” would continue to apply to persons who purchase or sell security-based swaps (“SBS”) on and after July 16, 2011.  The reproposal was prompted by Dodd-Frank’s addition of Section 13(o) to the Exchange Act, which would have otherwise excluded security-based swaps from the disclosure and short-swing profit rules.  The SEC did not give any guidance as to when SBS constitute beneficial ownership for Section 13.  However, the SEC staff is evaluating possible changes to the Section 13 reporting requirements but the outcome and timing of that evaluation remains uncertain. 
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The SEC held an open meeting today at which it adopted final rules implementing the whistleblower provisions in the Dodd-Frank Act. As expected, the final rules do not require employees to first report allegations through a company’s corporate compliance system before coming to the SEC, despite numerous comments by members of the corporate community urging the SEC to do so. The rules do contain additional provisions that purport to incentivize whistleblowers to report their concerns internally first although it is unclear what practical effect these provisions can reasonably be expected to have. Our Client Newsflash summarizing the final rules is available here.
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