As our clients and friends know, each year Mintz Levin provides an analysis of the regulatory developments that impact public companies as they prepare for their fiscal year-end filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and their annual shareholder meetings. This memorandum discusses key considerations to keep in mind as you embark upon the year-end reporting process in 2012.

Year 2 of Say-on-Pay. As required by Section 951 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act) and related SEC rulemaking, public companies other than smaller reporting companies were required to include two new, non binding resolutions in their proxy statements for their first shareholder meetings taking place on or after January 21, 2011. The first resolution, the “say-on-pay” vote, allows shareholders to vote whether to approve executive compensation as disclosed in the proxy statement pursuant to Item 402 of Regulation S-K. The second vote, referred to as the “say-on-frequency” vote, asks shareholders how often they want to conduct future say-on-pay votes: once a year, once every two years, or once every three years. For the 2011 proxy season, shareholders overwhelmingly voted in favor of annual votes on say-on-pay, as opposed to either of the other possible choices, making say-on-pay a yearly event for most companies. However, now that the first year is behind us, companies are not required and not expected to propose another say-on-frequency vote until their shareholder meetings taking place in 2017. Companies that qualify as “smaller reporting companies” will not be required to conduct the say-on-pay or say-on-frequency votes until the first annual or other meeting of shareholders at which directors are to be elected that occurs on or after January 21, 2013.