Practice Area Blogs & Digests

Human capital management has emerged as a hot topic in the world of corporate governance and should feature prominently on boards’ agendas in 2020.

For the first time ever, cyber incidents ranked as the top business risk globally in the ninth annual Allianz Risk Barometer.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the 8-K Trading Gap Act, a bill that would require public companies to put in place policies and procedures to prohibit officers and directors from trading company stock after a significant corporate event has occurred, but before the company has filed a Form 8-K disclosing such event.

On December 30, the SEC published a statement highlighting a number of potential areas of focus for audit committees as the 2019 calendar year-end financial reporting season approaches.

On December 19, the SEC issued guidance on disclosure obligations that companies should consider with respect to intellectual property and technology risks that may result from conducting business outside the United States.

On December 19, the SEC issued updated guidance to assist registrants with the submission of “traditional” confidential treatment requests under Rules 406 and 24b-2. Confidential treatment applications under these rules used to be the primary method for companies to protect confidential information filed in materials contracts.

On December 18, the SEC proposed amendments to the definition of “accredited investor” in Rule 501(a) of Regulation D to allow more investors to participate in private securities offerings.

A recent article in The Wall Street Journal argues that boards may have a hidden bias towards the CEOs they chose.

On November 5, the SEC proposed amendments to Exchange Act Rule 14a-8, the rule that governs the process for shareholder proposals to be included in a company’s proxy statement.

On November 5, the SEC proposed amendments to the rules governing proxy solicitations. The amendments are intended to help ensure that proxy voting advice used by investors and others who vote on investors’ behalf is accurate, transparent and materially complete.