After months of individual Commissioners and the Chair promising to do so, on December 15, 2021, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued proposed amendments to Rule 10b5-1 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as well as proposing a number of additional disclosure requirements.
In yet another step forward on the SEC’s path toward a comprehensive ESG disclosure framework, on September 22, 2021, the Staff of the Division of Corporation Finance issued a Sample Letter to Companies on Climate Change Disclosure, relying on the Commission’s 2010 Climate Change Guidance.
As predicted in our Connect on Tech discussion in March, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) is ramping up its examination and enforcement focus on cybersecurity at financial institutions, including scrutiny on actual implementation and deployment of published procedures in response to discovery of cyber breach incidents. Furthermore, the SEC appears to signal its expectation that multi-factor authentication (“MFA”) for email accounts containing sensitive client and customer information should be in place.
Continuing the practice of issuing Risk Alerts summarizing examination findings, which has only increased under the leadership of the now departing Division of Examinations (EXAMS) Director Pete Driscoll, on 21 July 2021, EXAMS issued such an Alert on fixed income principal and cross trades by investment advisers, a topic that the SEC Staff has been scrutinizing for some time.
The SEC today issued its first Order under its Whistleblower Rules in quite some time, citing a registered broker-dealer with violating Rule 21F-17 of the Securities Exchange Act, which precludes conduct that could impede anyone from communicating with the Commission about potential securities laws violations.
On May 6, 2021, SEC Chair Gary Gensler participated in his first Congressional hearing, before the House Committee on Financial Services, joined by Robert Cook, President and CEO of FINRA and Michael C. Bodson, the CEO of The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation. This was the third hearing for the House Financial Services Committee on issues related to the January 2021 market events associated with trading in GameStop; however, Committee members did not limit themselves to the topic at hand.