Author Archives: Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation

SEC Will Aggressively Scrutinize Issuer’s Climate Change Disclosure

On February 24, 2021, SEC acting chair Allison Herren Lee announced that she has directed the Division of Corporation Finance to enhance its focus on climate-related disclosures in its reviews of corporate filings. This follows the SEC’s announcement on February 1, 2021 of the appointment of its first-ever senior policy advisor for ESG issues. Acting chair Lee has asked […]

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Recent Trends In Securities Class Action Litigation

In this year’s update to NERA’s annual study, “Recent Trends in Securities Class Action Litigation”, we analyze trends in securities class action filings and resolutions based on activity through 2020. Highlights from this year’s report include: Since the first COVID-19-related lawsuit in March 2020, 32 additional filings have included COVID-19-related claims in their complaints. There […]

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Speech by Commissioner Crenshaw on Moving Forward Together – Enforcement for Everyone

I want to thank the Council of Institutional Investors for inviting me today [March 9, 2021]. You are tireless advocates for investors and staunch proponents of good corporate governance. The agenda for this year’s meeting covers a number of timely topics that are top of mind for me as well—from the impact of COVID-19 on […]

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Board Practices Quarterly: 2021 Boardroom Agenda

This post identifies some of the key areas and trends expected to be on boardroom agendas this year, according to a December 2020 survey of in-house members of the Society for Corporate Governance. These areas look beyond perennial agenda items, such as strategy and risk, and instead focus on new and emerging topics as many […]

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SEC Brings Regulation FD Enforcement Action

On Friday, the SEC brought an enforcement action charging a public company and three of its investor relations personnel with violations of Regulation FD, alleging that the company’s IR personnel had fed non-public information to sell-side research analysts in order to bring their consensus revenue views more into line with the company’s own internal estimates. […]

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Call to Action on Sustainable Corporate Governance

As leaders in business, investment and financial institutions, and academia we welcome and encourage efforts in jurisdictions around the world to take action to embed the concept of sustainable development in corporate governance law, codes and initiatives. Business sustainability, sustainable finance, corporate purpose and long-term value creation must begin with company boards and the systems […]

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House of Representatives Testimony on Climate Change and Social Responsibility

Thank you for the invitation and opportunity to appear before you today. I represent Ceres, a nonprofit organization working with investors and companies to build sustainability leadership within their own enterprises and to drive sector and policy solutions throughout the economy. Through our membership networks of more than 100 companies and almost 200 investors with […]

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House of Representatives Testimony on Climate Change and Social Responsibility

Thank you for the opportunity to testify at today’s hearing. My name is James Andrus, and I am an Investment Manager for the Board Governance and Sustainability program for the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (“CalPERS”). I am pleased to appear before you today on behalf of CalPERS. We applaud and support the Subcommittee’s focus […]

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Validation Capital

Although it is well understood that activist shareholders challenge management, they can also serve as a shield. In our new paper, we describe “validation capital,” which occurs when a bloc holder’s—and generally an activist hedge fund’s—presence protects management from shareholder interference and allows management’s pre-existing strategy to proceed uninterrupted. In other words, sometimes an activist […]

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Key Considerations for Fiscal Year 2020 Form 10-K and 20-F Filings

As issuers prepare their Form 10-K and 20-F filings for fiscal year 2020, they should consider recent and upcoming changes to the disclosure rules of the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and trending disclosure topics. This post summarizes several of those disclosure considerations and highlights the key changes to SEC rules that will affect Form […]

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