At an Open Commission Meeting last week, the SEC approved a 20-page policy statement reversing a longstanding policy that the Staff wouldn’t accelerate the effectiveness of a registration statement if the company’s bylaws had a provision mandating arbitration. The SEC also made a related change to Rule 431(e) of the Rules of Practice so that the delegated authority for the Staff to declare registration statements …
Corp Fin’s Priority: President Trump’s Push to End Quarterly Reporting With the SEC
As noted in this Reuters article, President Trump called for an end to quarterly reporting with the SEC yesterday to ease burdens on companies and instead move to a semi-annual reporting model. Here are seven things to consider (hat tip to Cooley’s Brad Goldberg for his help):
SEC Likely to Adopt Policy No Longer Prohibiting Mandatory Arbitration Bylaws
The SEC has calendared an Open Commission Meeting for this Wednesday during which it will consider whether to issue a policy statement addressing the presence of a provision requiring arbitration of investor claims arising under the Federal securities laws and its impact on decisions whether to accelerate the effectiveness of a registration statement. If the SEC does adopt such a policy, it would reverse a …
Jim Moloney Named As Corp Fin Director!
Wow. Wow. Wow. Jim Moloney is returning to the East Coast to serve as Corp Fin Director as noted in this press release from the SEC. It’s a great choice and I’m glad that Jim is willing to give up his Orange County lifestyle to come back to cold winters. I worked with Jim at the SEC and anyone who knows him can attest to …
“Rationalization of Disclosure Practices” on the Latest Reg Flex Agenda
The era of SEC Chair Paul Atkins’s tenure has been off to a blistering start – dating back to when Commissioner Mark Uyeda was Acting Chair – and the latest Reg Flex Agenda indicates that changes continue to be afoot that should benefit companies. Atkins issued this statement to explain the Reg Flex Agenda in which he notes his priorities of: As I’ll be blogging …
EDGAR Next: The SEC Staff’s Informal Set of FAQs
Recently, the SEC Staff posted the archive of a video they just made about EDGAR Next that included a number of questions that were submitted live via chat and answered by the Staff. These questions are answered starting at the 50:42 mark of the video, going all the way to the 1:35:00 mark. In total, five questions were answered. I’ve taken the transcript for those …
How Analysts and Investors Use AI to Review Earnings Releases
As borne out by a recent study, analysts and investors are increasingly using AI tools to read and analyze earnings reports (10-Ks, 10-Qs, earnings releases and transcripts) to gain faster insights and identify investment opportunities. These tools leverage natural language processing, machine learning and sentiment analysis to extract, interpret and rank relevant data. Here are some of the ways that analysts and investors use AI …
EDGAR Next: How to Handle Five Issues That Might Arise
With the deadline for mandatory use of EDGAR Next around the corner – September 15th – here are the five biggest issues we’ve been working with clients on (as told to me by Cooley’s Luci Altman), some of which mirror the “Top 12 Decision Points for EDGAR Next” that we’ve blogged about before:
Nevada Takes First Steps Towards Forming a Business Court
At the end of July, the Chief Justice of the Nevada Supreme Court proposed the adoption of a rule that would create a Commission to look into creating a business court in the two largest judicial districts in Nevada. Here is the court’s docket on that rulemaking, which includes comment letters from interested parties. A hearing was held on the proposal a few days ago, …
The Ten Most Common XBRL Errors for Form 10-Ks
Given that the Staff from the SEC’s Division of Economic and Risk Analysis recently had to post this note about errors for XBRL tags on “public float” amounts, I thought I would list the ten most common XBRL errors made by filers of Form 10-Ks, based on observations from the SEC’s DERA staff, Corp Fin staff comment letters and other commentary: 1. Incorrect Tag Selection: …