ON Securities

After all the speculation about effective dates of the new amendments to the proxy disclosure rules, the SEC on Tuesday published a set of Compliance & Disclosure Interpretations that clarifies the effective date of the new amendments. The C&DIs clarify that the effective dates are indeed in line with the statements made at the public hearing at which the amendments were adopted.

The most important clarification is that companies with a fiscal year ended before December 20, 2009 will not have to comply with the new rules this year. A company with a fiscal year ended on or after December 20, 2009 will be required to comply, unless the definitive proxy materials and the Form 10-K are filed before February 28, 2010. The C&DIs also clarify some of the transition rules in connection with IPOs and other special situations.

Of course, the section of the ON Securities Cheat Sheet discussing the amendments has been updated consistent with the C&DIs.

Next week, I will discuss some examples of risk-based compensation analysis. In the meantime, you might review this previous post that includes insights from a recent Deloitte program on compliance with the new rules.

Again, Happy Holidays! For those of you in the Upper Midwest, if you have to drive, drive carefully.

The ON Securities Cheat Sheet has now been updated to provide a summary of the SEC’s proxy disclosure amendments at the top of the second page. Descriptions of the some of the pending legislation and other regulatory developments have also been updated. The Cheat Sheet continues to put the new legislative and regulatory developments in context by providing short summaries in one short handy reference (never more than two pages).

Stay tuned for other updates in the coming weeks.

On December 16, 2009, the SEC adopted its amendments to the proxy disclosure rules – see the press release and the full 129-page release that includes the text of the rules. The release has led to some confusion about when the new rules are effective – the release mentions an effective date of February 28, 2010, but it does not specify exactly what that means. I agree with Mark Borges in the Proxy Disclosure Blog (subscription site), who assumes that the amendments apply to proxy statements and other applicable filings on or after that date.

Part of the confusion about the effective date resulted from a comment during the open meeting/webcast, to the effect that the rules apply to companies with fiscal years ending on or after December 20, 2009. That’s not the correct test. The December 20 date does appear in the final release, but only as a separate effective date for new calculation of the dollar amount of equity compensation reported in the Summary Compensation Table. Let’s hope someone provides some clarification soon about effective dates.

I’ll blog further about the rules themselves, and I’ll post a new version of the ON Securities Cheat Sheet soon that reflects the new rules. In my last post, I mentioned one of the “sleepers” in the rules. But I think there may be another one. The Commission added a requirement to discuss the nominating committee’s policy on diversity of Board nominees and, if there is a policy, to assess its effectiveness. The Commission declined to define “diversity” for this purpose. This is another area where some companies will be scrambling to figure out what to disclose, and may find it difficult to come up with a consensus on this sensitive topic with virtually no lead time.

As many of you know, the SEC announced yesterday [December 9] that it will hold an open meeting on Wednesday, December 16 for the purpose of adopting its proposed amendments to the proxy disclosure rules. For a short summary of these amendments, see the ON Securities Cheat Sheet.

The two questions on everyone’s mind: When will the rules be effective? And what changes will the SEC make to the proposals? Most people I talk to believe the rules will apply to 2010 proxy season for companies with a December or later fiscal year end. However, that could certainly change.

Assuming the final rules are similar to the proposals, many public companies will be busy over the next few weeks preparing for the new disclosures. Many people have focused on the requirements to include a risk disclosure in the CD&A section, the changes to the equity calculations in the Summary Compensation Table and the required disclosure of compensation consultant conflicts. But there are some “sleepers” too, such as the requirement to elaborate on the qualifications of each individual director nominee – drafting might be trickier than people think. We’ll all be watching the SEC on Wednesday.

Other Updates

A few other thoughts:

In the Corporate Counsel Blog this week, Broc Romanek gave a great report on the Supreme Court arguments in a case challenging the constitutionality of the PCAOB.

Thanks to Mike Melbinger in the Melbinger Compensation Blog for pointing out this Chicago Tribune article, quoting U of Chicago business professor Steven Kaplan for his interesting perspective on why CEOs are not overpaid. Kaplan obviously is trying to be controversial – check it out. I especially like the comparison between the earnings of the 20 largest hedge funds in 2007 ($20 billion) and that of the S&P 500 CEOs combined in the same year ($7.5 billion).

The Maslon Holiday E-Card came out this week, and it’s outstanding. Please check it out and accept my wishes for a very happy holiday season and a great 2010!

As I reported previously, the SEC enforcement staff is “loaded for bear,” stepping up its enforcement activities to go after violations of the securities laws. Some recent stories reinforce that it is more important than ever to guard against these violations:

The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that the SEC has greatly expanded its insider trading investigations of broker-dealers and hedge funds (subscription required to view complete article). According to the report, the staff has sent at least three dozen subpoenas in the past month, including investigating the role of Goldman Sachs bankers. The staff is using sophisticated technology to examine the webs of relationships among traders, investment bankers, attorneys and others.

Comment: There is no reason to think that the current investigations are limited to broker-dealers and hedge funds, and the trail could easily lead the SEC staff to company personnel. It is more important than ever for companies to monitor and enforce their insider trading policies.

The SEC last month reported that it entered into a consent decree with former officers and accountants at SafeNet in the first enforcement action by the Commission under Regulation G. Reg G regulates the use (and abuse) of “non-GAAP financial measures” by reporting companies. The complaint accused the personnel of engaging in a scheme to meet or exceed quarterly EPS targets through improper accounting adjustments. The company represented that it was excluding “non-recurring” expenses from its results, when in fact it was excluding recurring operating expenses to make its earnings look better.

Comment: SafeNet obviously was engaged in outright fraud, and Reg G gave the SEC staff another means to go after bad people. However, it’s no coincidence that the first Reg G proceeding is in late 2009 – again, the enforcement staff is actively looking for perceived wrongdoing, in part to justify the agency’s continued existence. Public companies should be more careful than ever in complying with Reg G – for example, be careful about characterizing any excluded expenses as “non-recurring,” which is a real hot-button issue with the SEC staff.

Westlaw Business Currents reported last week that there has been a “noticeable uptick” in companies disclosing Wells Notices relating to enforcement proceedings.

Comment: Be careful out there. And don’t get caught cheating.

No News. I keep checking the SEC calendar to see whether the Commission has scheduled a meeting to consider adoption of the new proxy disclosure rules. Nothing posted yet. It’s hard to predict whether anything will be adopted this year, or whether the new rules will be effective for the 2010 proxy season.

Just In Time For Thanksgiving – The Compensation Turkeys of the Year!

At Thanksgiving, our thoughts naturally turn to gluttony of all sorts. So it seems like a fitting time to recognize a few companies for granting awards to their executives that look so ridiculous they practically beg Congress to speed up compensation reform. A great place to look for these examples is the footnoted.org blog, which prides itself on posting the interesting stories “found in the footnotes” of SEC filings.

So pass the cranberry sauce and gravy, here are my nominees for the “Compensation Turkeys of the Year”, all reported by footnoted.org in the past few weeks:

Of course, Goldman Sachs makes the list for its announcement that it is setting aside around $17 billion for compensation and bonuses, calculated to be more than $700,000 on average for each of the company’s 31,700 employees. I blogged about this last month. The bonuses are based on Goldman’s financial results for the current year, and commentators disagree on how much the results were enhanced by the government bailout of AIG and other financial companies.

Allis-Chalmers reported recently that healthcare benefit premiums and expenses for its CEO exceeded $72,000 last year. (That buys a lot of aspirin.)

Microsoft announced that, for one new executive, they paid a relocation allowance of $4.1 million, and a related tax gross-up of $1.2 million.

These aren’t the only examples of compensation that grab your attention, but they are just the most recent obvious ones. As Mark Borges pointed out at the NASPP Annual Conference and other presentations, when companies eventually are required to have advisory votes on executive pay (Say-on-Pay), most companies’ compensation will be approved. However, to prevent a “no” vote, they will need to think about the compensation practices that appear the most excessive – personal use of corporate jets, tax gross-ups, etc. It will be interesting to see whether, in a couple of years, after compensation reform, the Compensation Turkeys of the Year will be extinct birds. Don’t count on it.

If you have any other Compensation Turkeys of the Year you would like to report, send me an e-mail. (As with any other good whistleblower policy, I won’t use your name unless you give permission.)

By the way, the picture above shows the family of wild turkeys that hung out in our back yard for the past few months. Leading up to Thanksgiving, though, I haven’t seen them lately. Times are tough.

Anyway, have a fantastic Thanksgiving!

RiskMetrics Update

Last week I reported that RiskMetrics Group came out with its 2010 updates to its proxy voting guidelines, summarized here. The compensation policy has changed more in form than in substance from last year, integrating separate policies into a single policy. RiskMetrics also clarified its methodology when it has compensation-related recommendations for a company based on its analysis. If that company has a Say-on-Pay proposal on the ballot, RiskMetrics will generally apply its recommendations to that resolution. However, if egregious practices are identified, or if a company previously received a negative recommendation on a Say-on-Pay resolution and the issue is not resolved, RiskMetrics may recommend a withhold vote with respect to compensation committee members.

The new governance policy also changes RiskMetrics’ standards when making recommendations with respect to shareholder rights plans and revises its director independence standards.

Several new reports have been published that provide valuable information about what’s going on in the public company world. Here are two that just came out:

Pearl Meyer & Partners released a survey report covering companies’ attitudes toward Say-on-Pay, which is currently required for TARP recipients but will not be required for other public companies until at least 2011. The survey found that most respondents were not very concerned about Say-on-Pay and are not yet taking specific steps to plan for shareholders advisory votes. The Pearl Meyer firm reports that virtually all advisory votes have passed, mostly by a sizeable majority. However, the firm cautions that institutional shareholders may get tougher on Say-on-Pay votes in the future. The survey report recommends some specific steps companies can take over the next several months to plan for Say-on-Pay.

Frederick W. Cook & Co. released a report of its study of non-employee director compensation at the 100 largest New York Stock Exchange companies and the 100 largest Nasdaq companies. The study found that compensation levels generally stabilized in 2009 after several years of increases, which had tracked increased director responsibilities under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. The study also found that the compensation mix changed, with more companies moving director equity awards out of stock options and into stock awards. Also, the declines in the equity markets had a significant impact on equity award values, especially at Nasdaq companies. The study outlines median compensation levels at these companies and examines a number of compensation practices.

One more update – hot off the presses: I noticed that RiskMetrics today published some of its 2010 policy information, which applies to all shareholder meetings occurring on or after February 1, 2010. The more comprehensive proxy voting guidelines will be published in December. However, the just-released documents shed some light on RiskMetrics’ evaluation of compensation and governance practices for the 2010 season. It appears that RiskMetrics will make some changes to its approach in making recommendations on Say-on-Pay votes and other compensation-related votes. I will report further on this next week.

I’ve just finished three and a half very interesting days at the NASPP Annual Conference and the Proxy Disclosure Conference sponsored by CompensationStandards.com in San Francisco. Aside from an unexpectedly big crowd and some great food, attendees encountered some interesting updates:

Proxy Disclosure Rules. Shelley Parratt, Director of Corporation Finance of the SEC, addressed the group, and there were two main news items. First, she previewed the currently proposed amendments to the proxy disclosure rules. She didn’t address when the amendments would be considered, but stated that the new rules “may well” be in place for the 2010 proxy season. The SEC staff still clearly wants to accomplish this goal. Since the rules probably won’t be considered until early December, this will likely put proxy drafters and compensation committees in a bind.

Second, apart from the new rules, Parratt discussed compliance with the proxy disclosure rules adopted in 2007 and indicated that the SEC staff will take a more assertive (aggressive?) posture in its comment process. The staff has observed that companies that have already responded to comments on these rules are doing a pretty good job of compliance, although they can always do better. On the other hand, companies that have not yet received the comments seem to be waiting to receive comments before complying with the staff’s guidance. She indicated that companies should be more proactive in changing their practices before they get comments, because the SEC will be taking a “no more Mr. Nice Guy” approach. Instead of “futures comments” (amend your filings in the future to comply), the staff will now be requiring many companies to go back and amend their prior filings. The main areas to focus on: (1) make sure your CD&A contains real analysis of “how” and “why” compensation decisions were made, and (2) disclose the performance targets underlying incentive compensation, unless there is a really compelling case to support competitive harm.

New Governance Reform Bill. There was some discussion of the financial reform bill released this week by Senator Christopher Dodd – the “Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2009″. Buried in the 1,136 page bill, which would reform the financial regulatory system, are numerous governance reforms that would apply to all public companies. These are very similar to the provisions of the Schumer bill, described in the ON Securities Cheat Sheet. See this description of the Dodd bill provisions in the Corporate Counsel Blog. The Dodd bill is significant to governance reform, because it may give momentum to the provisions of the other reform bills, which can now be reconciled and carried forward as part of financial institution reform.

A New Ball Game. I bumped into well known compensation attorney and blogger Mike Melbinger, but he was rushing out to the Fox News affiliate to give an interview. It’s very entertaining – he talked about AIG CEO Robert Benmosche’s statement that he may leave the company because of the government’s limitations on executive pay. Melbinger likened the Treasury to a baseball owner. He said that if you want your team to be successful (i.e., if you want AIG to pay back the $180 billion in government aid), you pay whatever it takes to hire C.C. Sabathia, rather than hiring a journeyman pitcher for a low price and hoping for the best. Even Melbinger, however, admitted that if everyone at AIG is driving around in Lamborghinis, you might have a PR problem.

Early November finds us in a kind of limbo – those of us who advise public companies on governance and compensation matters are waiting for something big to happen. But there’s plenty of smaller stuff to report on – although most of these items present more questions than answers:

Proxy Disclosure Rules. On November 4, SEC Chairman Schapiro gave a speech addressing current regulatory developments. She described the proxy disclosure rules but did not address when they would be adopted or considered. The Corporate Counsel Blog reports that the rules will not be adopted on November 9, as previously rumored. However, there is still a chance that the rules will apply for the 2010 proxy season. If so, there won’t be much time to evaluate the rules, or to hold a compensation committee meeting to address the new disclosures. Stay tuned. . . .

Proxy Access. Rep. Maxine Waters has proposed an amendment to the Investor Protection Act of 2009 (the current provisions of the Act are described in the ON Securities Cheat Sheet). The amendment would require the SEC to adopt rules permitting large shareholders to nominate directors in the company’s proxy statement (proxy access). If added to the Act and ultimately adopted, this provision would enhance the SEC’s position in adopting its proposed Rule 14a-11 granting proxy access.

Say-On-Pay and Shareholder Surveys. Companies continue to conduct annual advisory votes on compensation on a voluntary basis. Meanwhile, as reported by the Corporate Counsel Blog, some companies, including Schering-Plough, have begun to survey their shareholders. This will provide more detailed data on shareholders’ opinions about compensation practices and may emerge as an alternative or supplement to simple yes-or-no advisory votes.

New York Power of Attorney Law. You may have read about the amendments to the New York power of attorney laws, effective September 1, 2009. See this Forbes article. The amendments impose strict requirements (font size, notarization, etc.) for powers of attorney, particularly those signed in New York by New York residents. The amendments have prompted a flood of articles and analyses, including speculation that the requirements could affect the validity of powers of attorney for SEC registration statements, Section 16 filings, etc. I agree with this analysis, indicating that, even though there is no definitive guidance, the validity of powers of attorney for SEC filings should be governed by SEC rules and not state law.

I should get updates on some of these items next week – I’ll be attending the NASPP Annual Conference in San Francisco. Of course, I can’t wait to share the information with the ON Securities readers. There may even be a tweet or two, if you can’t wait for the Blog.

I attended a compelling legal education program this week, taught by Egil “Bud” Krogh. Political junkies know that Krogh was a young assistant White House counsel in the Nixon years. As a leader of the “Plumbers” unit, he authorized the 1971 break-in of the offices of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist after the leak of the Pentagon Papers. After the break-in came to light in the Watergate hearings, Krogh pleaded guilty, served time in prison, was disbarred and later reinstated.

Bud now lectures on the topic of legal ethics, based on his recent book, Integrity: Good People, Bad Choices, and Life Lessons from the White House. His premise: in a pressure-filled environment such as the White House, intense loyalty to individuals can blind you to your higher principles. This is compounded by fear, inexperience, pride and other factors.

Krogh’s description of an environment that can put pressure on decision-making is familiar to anyone called on to say yes or no to any proposal by a corporate officer. Whether the proponent is the client of an outside attorney or the boss of an in-house attorney, there is a lot of pressure just to nod approval, as Bud Krogh nodded to Howard Hunt when the Plumbers break-in was discussed. I think the situation is especially acute for in-house attorneys. Of course, most proposed actions are legal, and the advice is often about the level of risk involved in two alternatives. And most in-house attorneys do a great job of balancing the competing pressures of giving sound advice while also being part of the team. But how do some decisions, even decisions by good people, go astray?

A great example can be found in the options backdating scandals. An article in the Financial Times in November 2006 reported that the backdating scandals had resulted in at least twelve major US companies replacing their general counsel, and a March 2008 speech by the SEC’s Director of Enforcement reported that at least seven former general counsel had been charged by the SEC in connection with the scandals. Backdating, even though not necessarily illegal in itself, in these cases represented falsification of documents and involved misleading accounting and tax fraud. I know many attorneys said “no” to the practice, but these counsel simply nodded as backdating was pushed by other corporate officers. It might not have seemed like such a big deal at the time.

I asked Krogh how to advise an attorney (maybe a younger in-house attorney) how to avoid the pitfalls of losing perspective in a pressure-filled situation. He steered me toward a Top Ten List provided by Hank Shea, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney in Minnesota who teaches ethical leadership at the University of St. Thomas Law School, including the following two lessons learned from the misconduct of others:

When faced with a right versus a wrong decision, guard against that first intentional misstep.

When faced with an ethical dilemma, seek advice and counsel from others.

After an interesting program, Bud entertained us with a great Nixon impression, including, at the request of one of my colleagues, the famous phrase “I am not a crook”. Bud proved that we can all learn lessons about how to be able to make that statement, and mean it.

It’s Just An IP Thriller – One More Comment

Bud Krogh also told a great story about Elvis, the King of Rock and Roll, who came to visit President Nixon in a meeting engineered by Bud. I just saw a great film about another King – the King of Pop. “This Is It” chronicles the rehearsals for Michael Jackson’s planned comeback concert tour. I recommend it to anyone who wants to see the combination of pure genius and meticulous attention to detail shown by MJ. If you didn’t see it before, it’s worth reading my previous post, reporting that Jackson was actually one of the named inventors in an issued patent.