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More on the Proposed SEC Rules, including Compensation Consultant Disclosures; The Color of Blogging
(The following post originally appeared on ONSecurities, a top Minnesota legal blog founded by Martin Rosenbaum to address securities, governance and compensation issues facing public companies.)
July 17, 2009
As described previously, the SEC's newly proposed amendments to its disclosure rules, issued on July 10, 2009, would require significant new proxy disclosures - disclosure of compensation policies and their impact on risk and risk management, and a new method for reporting of the value of equity awards in the Summary Compensation Table. The proposals include other notable requirements as well. Here is a description of what is covered and what is not covered in the proposals:
Compensation Consultant Information. The amendments, if adopted, would require additional disclosures about compensation consultants, if they play any role in determining or recommending executive or director compensation. The proxy statement would need to include information about the fees paid to the consultant and any affiliates of the consultant during the last fiscal year; the additional services provided to the company by the consultant and its affiliates; and whether the consultant was recommended by management.
- Comment. When it considered the compensation disclosure rules in 2006, the SEC received public comments of institutional investors and others, who claimed that the fees paid to compensation consultants for other services created conflicts of interest and should be disclosed. The SEC declined to require this disclosure in the final rules. Just before the rules went into effect, a group of large institutional investors sent a letter to the 25 largest U.S. public companies, requesting that they include such information, and many companies complied voluntarily with the request.
- Since that time, the issue of consultant conflicts has surfaced numerous times. A 2007 study commissioned by a House committee found that the data "suggested" a correlation between the levels of CEO pay and percentage of the consultant's fees derived from services other than executive pay advice. However, a 2008 academic study coauthored by professors at the Wharton School found "no compelling evidence" that consultants with higher level of non-executive services were engaging in "rent extraction" (i.e., giving executives higher pay to keep the non-executive business). In any event, the SEC is proposing to mandate the enhanced disclosures, which seem likely to "chill" compensation committees' use of consultants that provide other services to the company.
Other Proposed SEC Disclosure Requirements. The SEC's proposed amendments would also require:
- new disclosures about the qualifications of directors and director nominees, including a statement about the specific skills they possess that qualify them to be directors and committee members;
- disclosure of the company's leadership structure, including the identity and role of a lead director, if the company has one;
- disclosure of the board's role in the risk management process; and
- current reporting of the results of shareholder votes on Form 8-K.
What the Proposed Amendments DO NOT Do. Notably, the SEC's proposed amendments do change or clarify the compensation disclosure rules in their most problematic area - the extent to which the company must disclose the performance target levels upon which compensation is based, and whether the target levels may continue to be excluded based on competitive harm. This issue is certainly the source of the most frequent SEC comments on proxy disclosures. However, the SEC's proposing release requests public comment on whether the exclusion based on competitive harm should be eliminated. The release, on page 65, also encourages any interested person to suggest additional changes to the rules. Stay tuned, and look for final rules this fall, so they can be effective for the 2010 proxy season.
