Monthly Archives: June 2015

Managerial Ownership and Earnings Management

Posted by Phil Quinn, University of Washington, on
Thursday, June 25, 2015
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Phil Quinn is Assistant Professor of Accounting at the University of Washington. This post is based on an article by Mr. Quinn.

In my paper, Managerial Ownership and Earnings Management: Evidence from Stock Ownership Plans, which was recently made publicly available on SSRN, I exploit the initiation of ownership requirements to examine the relation between managerial ownership and earnings management. Prior work provides mixed evidence on the relation between managerial ownership and earnings management. Many studies provide evidence of a positive relation between managerial ownership and earnings management, which is consistent with an increase in stock price increasing the portfolio value of high-ownership managers more than the value of low-ownership managers (i.e., the “reward effect”) (Cheng and Warfield 2005; Bergstresser and Philippon 2006; Baber, Kang, Liang, and Zhu 2009; Johnson, Ryan, and Tian 2009). Other work notes that earnings management is a risky activity and posits that risk-adverse managers will be less likely to engage in risky activities as their ownership increases. Consistent with the “risk effect” increasing with managerial ownership, several studies find no relation or a negative relation between earnings management and managerial ownership (Erickson, Hanlon, and Maydew 2006; Hribar and Nichols 2007; Armstrong, Jagolinzer, and Larcker 2010). Armstrong, Larcker, Ormazabal, and Taylor (2013) note that the theoretical reward effect and risk effect are countervailing forces, and the countervailing forces may explain why prior empirical work finds mixed evidence on the relation between ownership and earnings management. By examining stock ownership plans, a governance reform that limits the reward effect, I seek to inform the discussion on the relation between ownership and earnings management.

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Getting to Know You: The Case for Significant Shareholder Engagement

Posted by F. William McNabb III, Vanguard, on
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
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F. William McNabb III is Chairman and CEO of Vanguard. This post is based on Mr. McNabb’s recent keynote address at Lazard’s 2015 Director Event, “Shareholder Expectations: The New Paradigm for Directors.”

I’ll begin my remarks with a premise. It’s a simple belief that I have. And that is: Corporate governance should not be a mystery. For corporate boards, the way large investors vote their shares should not be a mystery. And for investors, the way corporate boards govern their companies should not be a mystery. I believe we’re moving in a direction where there is less mystery on both sides, but each side still has some work to do in how it tells its respective stories.

So let me start by telling you a little bit about Vanguard’s story and our perspective. I’ll start with an anecdote that I believe is illustrative of some of the headwinds that we all face in our efforts to improve governance: “We didn’t think you cared.” A couple of years ago, we engaged with a very large firm on the West Coast. We had some specific concerns about a proposal that was coming to a vote, and we told them so.

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Regulatory Arbitrage and Cross-Border Bank Acquisitions

Posted by Alvaro Taboada, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, on
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
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Alvaro Taboada is an Assistant Professor of Finance at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. This post is based on an article by Professor Taboada and Andrew Karolyi, Professor of Finance at Cornell University.

In our forthcoming Journal of Finance paper, Regulatory Arbitrage and Cross-Border Bank Acquisitions, we examine how differences in bank regulation influence cross-border bank acquisition flows and share price reactions to cross-border deal announcements. The recent global financial crisis, caused in part by systemic failures in bank regulation, has sparked, among other things, a strong push for both stricter capital requirements and greater international coordination in regulation. For example, seven of the 10 recommendations of the 2011 Report of the Cross-Border Bank Resolution Group of the Basel Committee for Banking Supervision (BCBS) propose greater coordination of national measures to deal with the increasingly important cross-border activities of banks. Some argue this push for tougher regulations and increased restrictions on bank activities may create incentives for “regulatory arbitrage,” whereby banks from countries with strict regulations engage in cross-border activities in countries with weaker regulations. The purpose of the study is to shed light on the motives behind regulatory arbitrage by examining one of the most important types of investment decisions that banks can make—namely, cross-border acquisitions.

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Congress Should Let the SEC Do its Job

Posted by Lucian Bebchuk, Harvard Law School, and Robert J. Jackson, Jr., Columbia Law School, on
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
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Lucian Bebchuk is Professor of Law, Economics, and Finance at Harvard Law School. Robert J. Jackson, Jr. is Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. Bebchuk and Jackson served as co-chairs of the Committee on Disclosure of Corporate Political Spending, which filed a rulemaking petition requesting that the SEC require all public companies to disclose their political spending. Bebchuk and Jackson are also co-authors of Shining Light on Corporate Political Spending, published in the Georgetown Law Journal. A series of posts in which Bebchuk and Jackson respond to objections to an SEC rule requiring disclosure of corporate political spending is available here. All posts related to the SEC rulemaking petition on disclosure of political spending are available here.

Last week, the House Appropriations Committee included in its 2016 appropriations bill for financial services agencies a provision that would prevent the SEC from developing rules that would require public companies to disclose their political spending. Although this provision is unlikely to become law, its adoption is regrettable. In our view, Congress should let the SEC do its job and use its expert judgment—free of political pressures in any direction—to determine what information should be disclosed to public-company investors.

In July 2011, we co-chaired a committee of ten corporate and securities law academics that petitioned the SEC to develop rules requiring public companies to disclose their political spending. The SEC has now received over 1.2 million comments on the proposal—more than any rulemaking petition in the SEC’s history. As we have explained in previous posts on the Forum, the case for rules requiring disclosure of corporate spending is compelling. Unfortunately, Chairman Mary Jo White has faced significant political pressure not to develop such rules, and the Commission has so far chosen to delay consideration of rules in this area.

As we explained in earlier posts on the Forum (see, for example, posts here and here), we view this delay as regrettable in light of the compelling arguments in favor of disclosure and the breadth of support that the petition has received. Furthermore, as we explain in detail in our article Shining Light on Corporate Political Spending, an analysis of the full range of objections that opponents of transparency have raised makes clear that these opponents have failed to provide a convincing basis for keeping corporate political spending below investors’ radar screen.

We agree with the bipartisan group of three former SEC Commissioners who just last month referred to the SEC’s inaction on the petition as “inexplicable.” At a minimum, the broad support and compelling arguments in favor of disclosure of corporate spending on politics make clear that the Commission should move promptly to consider the petition on the merits. Unfortunately, last week’s move by the Appropriations Committee reflects another attempt to avoid consideration of the rulemaking petition on its merits. Members of Congress should not try to prevent the SEC from even considering the substantive merits of the petition.

While corporate political spending is an issue that politicians are naturally interested in, our petition focuses on whether investors should receive information regarding political spending at the companies they own. That is an issue that falls squarely within the SEC’s mandate and expertise. Regardless of their views on corporate political spending, Congressmen of all stripes should avoid interfering with the Commission’s rulemaking processes. We urge them to allow the SEC to do its job.

D&O Liability: A Downside of Being a Corporate Director

Posted by Alex R. Lajoux, National Association of Corporate Directors, on
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
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Alex R. Lajoux is chief knowledge officer at the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD). This post is based on a NACD publication authored by Ms. Lajoux. This post is part of the Delaware law series, which is cosponsored by the Forum and Corporation Service Company; links to other posts in the series are available here.

One of the few downsides to board service is the exposure to liability that directors of all corporations potentially face, day in and day out, as they perform their fiduciary duties. The chance of being sued for a major merger decision is now 90 percent; but that well known statistic is just the tip of an even larger iceberg. The Court of Chancery for the state of Delaware, where some one million corporations are incorporated (among them most major public companies), hears more than 200 cases per year, most of them involving director and officer liability. And given the high esteem in which Delaware courts are held, these influential D&O liability decisions impact the entire nation.

This ongoing story, covered in the May-June issue of NACD Directorship magazine, recently prompted the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) to take action. Represented by the law firm Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP, NACD filed an amicus curiae (“friend-of-the-court”) brief in the matter of In re Rural/Metro, a complex case likely to continue throughout the summer. Essentially, the Court of Chancery ruled against directors and their advisors, questioning their conduct in the sale of Rural/Metro to a private equity firm.

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Harvard Convenes the Roundtable on Shareholder Engagement

Posted by Kobi Kastiel, Co-editor, HLS Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation, on
Monday, June 22, 2015
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The Harvard Law School Program on Corporate Governance and the Harvard Law School Program on Institutional Investors convened the Harvard Roundtable on Shareholder Engagement last Wednesday, June 17. The event brought together for a roundtable discussion 81 prominent experts with a wide range of perspectives on the subject, including senior officers from institutional investors (both mutual funds and public pension funds) with aggregate assets under management exceeding $16 trillion, senior officers from companies with aggregate market capitalization exceeding $1.4 trillion, and representatives from many leading activist hedge funds, investment banks and corporate law firms. Participants in the event, and the topics of discussion, are set out below.

The Roundtable sessions focused on shareholder engagement with issuers. The Roundtable began with a general discussion of current debates on shareholder activism. The participants discussed a variety of topics, including the debate on whether activism is beneficial for the long-term and the debate on buybacks and distributions to shareholders. The Roundtable then moved to a discussion of engagements with respect to activist interventions, including engagement between issuers and investors (both activists and non-activist), and among investors. The Roundtable, which was co-organized by Lucian Bebchuk, Stephen Davis, and Scott Hirst, was sponsored by a number of co-sponsors (listed here), the supporting organizations of the Program on Corporate Governance (listed on the Program site here), and the institutional members of the Harvard Institutional Investor Forum (listed here).

The participants in the Roundtable on Shareholder Engagement included:

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Supreme Court: Fiduciaries Must Monitor Offered 401(k) Investment Alternatives

Posted by Boris Feldman, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, on
Monday, June 22, 2015
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Boris Feldman is a member of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, P.C. This post is based on a WSGR alert.

On May 18, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held in Tibble v. Edison International that fiduciaries of 401(k) retirement plans have a continuing duty under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) to monitor an investment alternative offered under a 401(k) plan after it is selected. In monitoring an investment alternative, the fiduciaries must engage in a prudent process. [1]

Although the principle described in Tibble was well understood by many 401(k) plan fiduciaries, the decision nonetheless serves as an important reminder that it is necessary for 401(k) plan fiduciaries to implement a due diligence process that will withstand scrutiny from the federal courts and the U.S. Department of Labor upon review.

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SEC Re-Proposes Rules on Arranging, Negotiating or Executing Security-Based Swaps

Posted by Annette L. Nazareth, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, on
Sunday, June 21, 2015
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Annette Nazareth is a partner in the Financial Institutions Group at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, and a former commissioner at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The following post is based on a Davis Polk client memorandum; the complete publication, including appendices, is available here.

On May 13, 2015, the SEC published proposed amendments and re-proposed rules on the application of certain Title VII requirements to cross-border security-based swap activities of non-U.S. persons based on U.S. conduct. The proposed rules would modify numerous prior SEC proposals and final rules, including the May 2013 proposed rules on the cross-border application of security-based swap regulations, the August 2014 final cross-border definitions and de minimis rules and the March 2015 reporting final rules. [1]

Notably, the proposed rules would:

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Regulation A+ Takes Effect

Posted by Thomas J. Kim, Sidley Austin LLP, on
Saturday, June 20, 2015
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Thomas J. Kim is a partner at Sidley Austin LLP. This post is based on a Sidley Austin publication authored by Mr. Kim, Craig E. Chapman, and John J. Sabl.

On June 19, 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) recently adopted rule amendments to Regulation A under the Securities Act of 1933 (the Securities Act)—colloquially known as “Regulation A+”—took effect. Regulation A is intended to ease the burden of Securities Act registration for small public offerings. These rule amendments, among other things, increase the amount of capital that can be raised in Regulation A offerings from $5 million to $50 million over a 12-month period.

The extent to which Regulation A+ will result in issuers and other market participants actually using Regulation A to raise capital will depend on a number of factors—including how it compares to other methods for raising capital, how the SEC Staff will administer the offering process and the market’s acceptance of Regulation A-compliant offering materials.
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Volcker Rule: Agencies Release New Guidance

Posted by Whitney A. Chatterjee, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, on
Friday, June 19, 2015
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Whitney A. Chatterjee is partner at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP. This post is based on a Sullivan & Cromwell publication authored by Ms. Chatterjee, C. Andrew Gerlach, Eric M. Diamond, and Ken Li; the complete publication, including Appendix, is available here.

[June 12, 2015], the staffs of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (the “Federal Reserve”), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (collectively, the “Agencies”) provided two important additions to their existing list of Frequently Asked Questions (“FAQs”) addressing the implementation of section 13 of the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956, as amended (the “BHC Act”), commonly known as the “Volcker Rule.”

The Volcker Rule imposes broad prohibitions on proprietary trading and investing in and sponsoring private equity funds, hedge funds and certain other investment vehicles (“covered funds”) by “banking entities” and their affiliates. The Volcker Rule, as implemented by the final rule issued by the Agencies (the “Final Rule”), provides exclusions from the definition of covered fund for certain foreign public funds and joint ventures.

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