Many of our members have asked about when the SEC might act on the many pending rule proposals it has offered up in the past several months. Yesterday, the SEC announced the issuance of the latest edition of the agency’s Reg Flex Agenda, and that document provides some clues. The Reg Flex Agenda lays out the following dates by which final action is targeted on some of the agency’s more consequential rule proposals:
– Clawback Listing Standards – October 2022
– Climate Change Disclosure – October 2022
– Pay v. Performance Disclosure – October 2022
– Proxy Voting Advice – October 2022
– Share Repurchase Disclosure Modernization – October 2022
– Cybersecurity Risk Governance – April 2023
– Modernization of Beneficial Ownership Reporting – April 2023
– Rule 10b5-1 & Insider Trading – April 2023
These dates may or may not bear any relationship to reality, but in light of Commissioner Hester Peirce’s statement that, with the latest edition of the agenda, the SEC has “abandoned our careful and considered approach to altering regulation in favor of effecting hasty and sweeping change,” it sure looks like at least one commissioner thinks that they do. If so, we’re in for an avalanche of rulemaking between now and September 30th when the SEC’s fiscal year ends — and the pace doesn’t appear set to slow in fiscal 2023 either.
Be sure to check out the whole agenda. In addition to rules on which final action is expected, there are plenty of new rule proposals that may be rolled out in the upcoming months, including one on Human Capital Management that’s expected by fiscal year-end. With this unprecedented volume of SEC rulemaking on the horizon, you can’t afford to miss our Proxy Disclosure and 19th Annual Executive Compensation Conferences this year. We already have expert panels lined up to address many of these rulemaking initiatives — and you can count on our panelists to address whatever else the SEC throws our way between now and then!
— John Jenkins, TheCorporateCounsel.net, June 23, 2022
