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Just days after it announced its intention to explore initial agreements on mutual recognition with some of its foreign regulatory counterparts, the Securities and Exchange Commission made good on that promise by beginning talks on the topic with Australian authorities. SEC Chairman Christopher Cox met with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on March 29 to […]

Investor groups are raising alarms that the high-profile committee studying ways to simplify financial reporting might actually make things worse with some proposals on how to handle materiality and the correction of financial statement errors. The Securities and Exchange Commission’s special Committee to Improve Financial Reporting held a two-day public meeting earlier this month in […]

Leaders of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission have pledged to build a stronger working relationship between their two agencies, in the face of ever-more blurry lines between securities, commodities, and futures. An agreement signed last week establishes a permanent regulatory liaison between the two, provides for enhanced information sharing, […]

The Securities and Exchange Commission has published for comment the 107-page proposing release for amendments to its rules for foreign private issuers. Among other things, the amendments would accelerate the deadline for annual reports filed on Form 20-F. The proposed changes are part of SEC efforts to update its disclosure rules and other requirements that […]

When the Securities and Exchange Commission eventually revisits the issue of shareholder access to the company proxy statement for director elections, it ought to proceed with caution, one of its commissioners urged in a recent speech. “We should be treading very carefully when we seek to disturb both our longstanding rules and interpretations, but also […]

The blue-ribbon committee charged with advising the Securities and Exchange Commission on how to simplify financial reporting has published its preliminary ideas, including a call for the SEC not to rush adoption of XBRL technology. The Committee to Improve Financial Reporting submitted its 12 “developed proposals” last week, and they are now posted on the […]

The Securities and Exchange Commission has proposed a slate of changes for how foreign private issuers must report their financial statements, part of the agency’s continuing effort to keep the United States’ competitive edge in the world capital markets. Among the changes proposed at an SEC meeting last week: ending a requirement that FPIs make […]

A surprise ruling from the Internal Revenue Service might send companies scrambling to review the termination provisions of compensation plans intended to satisfy Section 162(m) of the federal tax code. In a private letter released Jan. 25 that appears to reverse a previous IRS position, the agency said that a plan that allows performance-based compensation […]

As companies head into this year’s annual meeting season and get down to business preparing their annual reports on Form 10-K, executive compensation is once again the critical issue they’ll need to focus on. While there aren’t a slew of new disclosure rules to contend with this year, observers say the stakes are higher, since […]

Coming soon from the Securities and Exchange Commission: A final rule revising the limited offering exemption in Regulation D, a rule proposal to address “stealth restatements,” and recommendations on exactly what materiality is. Stephanie Hunsaker, associate chief accountant in the Division of Corporation Finance, said last week that the SEC expects to consider soon a […]