The Filing Cabinet

Joe Mont explores new research from The Conference Board that says CEOs at the nation’s top companies have landed atop the list of the 25 highest paid executives every year since 2012, a trend that may have little to do with the price of company stock.

A recent survey of 1,202 individuals by Stanford University’s Rock Center for Corporate Governance shows the American public believes CEOs take home much more in compensation than they deserve. “While we find that members of the public are not particularly knowledgeable about how much CEOs actually make in annual pay, there is a general sense of outrage fueled in part by the political environment,” says Professor David Larcker of the results.

SEC Commissioner Michael Piwowar has taken the rare step of publishing a second statement opposing the newly adopted pay ratio disclosure rule (not to be confused with his first statement of outrage last week). The length and tone of the statement add fuel to the theory that his criticisms will become the blueprint for a lawsuit by other opponents of the rule. More inside.

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s pay ratio rule is now final, approved by a 3-2 vote on Wednesday. The rule requires a comparison of CEO pay to the compensation of the median employee. Concessions to corporate concerns include the ability to exclude up to 5 percent of non-U.S. employees when determining the median employee and allowing cost-of-living adjustments. Details inside.

The wait is over. On Aug. 5, the Securities and Exchange Commission will consider whether to adopt a rule requiring public companies to disclose the ratio of the annual total compensation of the chief executive officer to the median of the annual total compensation of the company’s employees. The proposed rule has been one of the most commented-upon in SEC history. Details inside.

The average compensation package for CEOs in the United States rose nearly 13 percent in 2014, driven by increasingly valuable pension plans, according to new research from Institutional Shareholder Services that analyzed early filers in the Russell 3000 index. Among firms that use equity compensation, the median grant date value of stock awards increased nearly 12 percent. Details inside.