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

SEC Proposes “Pay Versus Performance” Rule

On April 29, 2015, a divided Securities and Exchange Commission proposed requiring U.S. public companies to disclose the relationship between executive compensation and the company’s financial performance. [1] The proposed “pay versus performance” rule, one of the last Dodd-Frank Act rulemaking responsibilities for the SEC, mandates that a company provide, in any proxy or information […]

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Remarks at the 4th Annual Fixed Income Conference

This conference is one stop on a bit of a tour I have been on lately, speaking with academics around the country. In each of those conferences, meetings, and other events I have been encouraging increased dialogue between academic researchers and the SEC. Just last month, I spoke to a group of equity market microstructure […]

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2015 Spin-Off Guide

A spin-off involves the separation of a company’s businesses through the creation of one or more separate, publicly traded companies. Spin-offs have been popular because many investors, boards and managers believe that certain businesses may command higher valuations if owned and managed separately, rather than as part of the same enterprise. An added benefit is […]

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Why Run Away from the Evidence?

Back in September 2013, Lucian Bebchuk, Alon Brav and Wei Jiang posted Don’t Run Away from the Evidence: A Reply to Wachtell Lipton on this blog as a means to rebut the criticism they received on an early draft of their empirical study, The Long-Term Effects of Hedge Fund Activism. In a nutshell, their empirical […]

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Proposed Rule on Pay Versus Performance

Executive compensation and its relationship to the performance of a company has been an important issue since the first proxy rules were promulgated by the Commission nearly 80 years ago. The first tabular disclosure of executive compensation appeared in 1943, and over the years, the Commission has continued to update and overhaul the presentation and […]

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Restraining Overconfident CEOs Through Improved Governance

In our recent paper, Restraining overconfident CEOs through improved governance: Evidence from the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, forthcoming in the Review of Financial Studies, we use the joint passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and changes to the NYSE/NASDAQ listing rules to analyze the impact of improved governance in moderating the behavior of overconfident CEOs. Overconfidence can lead […]

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The SEC as the Whistleblower’s Advocate

I am very honored to address the Garrett Institute, one of the most important programs in the country for corporate and securities lawyers, and to be in David’s home territory of Northwestern Law School where he served as Dean before going on to serve as a very distinguished Chairman of the SEC in the late […]

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SEC Broadens Focus on and Requirements for 13D Amendment Disclosure

The SEC recently announced settlements of charges against insiders relating to three different going private transactions. The settlement orders (the “Orders”) reflect a general increased focus by the SEC on insiders’ compliance with Schedule 13D amendment requirements in connection with going private transactions (and possibly other extraordinary transactions), as well as possibly expanded requirements for […]

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SEC Releases Proposed Rules on Dodd-Frank Pay vs. Performance Disclosure Rule

On April 29, 2015, the SEC released proposed rules under Section 953(a) of the Dodd-Frank Act, regarding required proxy and other information statement disclosure of the relationship between executive compensation actually paid by a company, and the company’s financial performance. The proposed rules are subject to public comments for 60 days following their publication in […]

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Fixing Public Sector Finances: The Accounting and Reporting Lever

Detroit’s bankruptcy highlighted the precarious financial situation of many states, cities, and other localities (collectively referred to as municipalities). In an article just published in the UCLA Law Review, we argue that part of the blame for this situation lies with the outdated and ineffective financial reporting regime for public entities and that fixing this […]

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