The Ticker

SEC Enforcement Division Co-Directors Stephanie Avakian and Steven Peikin recently gave speeches looking back on fiscal year 2018, which ended on September 30 and was their first full fiscal year in office. Both speeches dispute the notion that fiscal year 2018 saw a decline in the SEC’s enforcement activity. 

The movement to increase the number of women in the boardroom has gained momentum since The Ticker published “Spotlight on Gender Diversity in the Boardroom,” in February. 

On October 18, a group of high profile CEOs and institutional investors released version 2.0 of the Commonsense Principles, a set of corporate governance principles for public companies, their boards and their institutional investors.

In an October 16 press release, the SEC said that companies hit by Michael will receive an extension on certain filing deadlines.

With the second year of pay ratio disclosures approaching, most public company counsel will likely feel that the worst is behind them now that they have a process in place and important personnel are up to speed.

In light of recent outages of Edgar’s filing system, this blog post from The Corporate Counsel discusses the SEC’s transparency (and historic lack thereof) with respect to such down time.

In a September 19 press release the SEC indicated that companies hit by Hurricane Florence will receive an extension on certain filing deadlines.

On September 11, the SEC announced that Elad Roisman had been sworn into office as an SEC Commissioner by SEC Chairman Jay Clayton. 

On September 6, the SEC announced an award of $39 million to one whistleblower and $15 million to another, stating that the whistleblowers’ “critical information and continued assistance helped the agency bring an important enforcement action.”