The Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division are seeking comment on 20 questions concerning possible revisions to the guidelines they use to evaluate the competitive effects of proposed mergers. The questions are aimed at gathering input for a series of public workshops to look at how to update their Horizontal Merger […]
Melissa Klein Aguilar
Posted inInternal Controls
SOX Exemption Bill Introduced
Here we go again. Roughly a week after the Securities and Exchange Commission announced what it vowed its last extension for non-accelerated filers to comply with the auditor attestation requirement under Section 404(b) of Sarbanes-Oxley, Congress has revived efforts to exempt those companies from the provision. Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.) on Oct. 8 introduced the […]
Posted inFrom the Archive
Poll: Most Finance Execs Support SEC IFRS Roadmap
With convergence front-and-center once again, most finance professionals say they would support the Securities and Exchange Commission’s approval of its proposed roadmap for adopting International Financial Reporting Standards, but the majority think the SEC should push back the mandatory deadline by a year. That’s according to a survey of more than 150 finance professionals conducted […]
Posted inEthics & Culture
How Companies Are Coping With Social Media
While the use of online social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube has exploded, the adoption of policies governing the use of those tools by the workforce is still lagging. That’s according to a recent survey of nearly 800 compliance and ethics professionals conducted by the Society of Corporate Compliance & Ethics and […]
Posted inRegulatory Enforcement
Reg FD Settlement Gives Valuable Insights
A settlement between the Securities and Exchange Commission and a corporate executive for violating the SEC’s Regulation Fair Disclosure offers guidance that could potentially help public companies avoid enforcement trouble over executives talking out of turn. Experts say the SEC’s Sept. 24 civil action against Christopher Black, the former chief financial officer of American Commercial […]
Posted inFrom the Archive
A Bird’s Eye View of Compliance Departments
Good news and bad news for corporate compliance officers: Anyone feeling strapped for budget and resources, you’re not alone … but don’t expect much sympathy from regulators or enforcement attorneys who might pay you a visit sometime. Those are some of the findings of a recent poll of 164 compliance executives, who generally expect tight […]
Posted inFrom the Archive
Final Proxy Access Rule Delayed Until 2010
The Securities and Exchange Commission will delay final rules that would make it easier for shareholders to include their own director nominees in corporate proxies, at least until the start of 2010. Late last week, Bloomberg, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter, reported that SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro had backed away from approving a […]
Posted inInternal Controls
404(b) for Small Cos. Delayed to FYEs Until June 15, 2010
Good news for non-accelerated filers: The Securities and Exchange Commission has granted them more time to begin providing audited assessments of their internal controls over financial reporting as required under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, The SEC announced the extension today at the same time it published the findings of its long-awaited study on […]
Posted inFrom the Archive
XBRL Update: Corp. Actions, Taxonomy Addendum, More
It’s been busy in the interactive data arena for the last few weeks. Here’s an update of the latest XBRL-related news. Efforts to improve the processing of corporate actions data in the U.S. by tagging those actions using XBRL are under way, with the creation of a stakeholder group to represent the needs of the […]
Posted inRegulatory Enforcement
SEC-CFTC Harmonization Report Coming Oct. 15
Stay tuned: An expected report recommending ways to harmonize regulation of futures and securities is due out shortly, according to the chairmen of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. In a press release issued on Sept. 30—the deadline given by the White House in its June white paper calling for […]
