Arielle Bikard

When the Securities and Exchange Commission finalized a proposal giving shareholders advisory votes on executive compensation, corporate governance analysts didn’t think it was a big deal. The companies with executive compensation problems had already dealt with “say-on-pay” votes through the proxy-resolution process, they reasoned. They were wrong. This proxy season, five companies have already lost […]

Issuers of asset-backed securities—banks and other financial firms whose ABS offerings keep the flow of capital coursing through the public markets—find themselves on the horns of a disclosure dilemma these days. It’s a dilemma that has equally snarled the Securities and Exchange Commission. The heart of the problem is how to implement various sections of […]

The Securities and Exchange Commission pushed back several of its Dodd-Frank Act implementation deadlines, according to the agency’s timeline which was updated on Friday. The delayed provisions were originally scheduled to be approved by July and are now scheduled to go through by December. No reason is stated for the change. They include proposals that […]

Only 8.3 percent of Securities and Exchange Commission employees would work in the event of a Federal government shutdown, according to the agency’s “plan for operating in the event of a lapse in appropriations” released today on its website. About half of those 332 SEC staff to be retained would stay “because they are engaged […]

If the federal government shuts down, the Securities and Exchange Commission will have “only an extremely limited number of staff members available to respond to emergency situations involving the safety of human life or the protection of property, including law enforcement,” according to an update posted yesterday on the agency’s website, which also provides emergency […]

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced today it had charged three former brokerage executives—including the former chief compliance officer—for failure to keep customer information confidential as the Tampa-based company prepared to file for bankruptcy, which it did in April, 2010. This is the first time the SEC has brought financial penalties against individuals just on […]

With the clock ticking on the extension of funding for the federal government and no sign of a compromise in sight on the battle over budget cuts, a government shutdown could happen as soon as tomorrow. So if the budget impasse forces a shutdown on April 8, or after another stop-gap measure, or even in […]

Taking its cues from the Dodd-Frank Act, the Securities and Exchange Commission last week proposed rules to strengthen the independence of board members who serve on compensation committees and to curb conflicts of interest with compensation advisers. The details of those rules, however, it is leaving to U.S. stock exchanges to write. “The SEC closely […]