Normally, I don’t pay too much attention to the speeches that SEC Commissioners deliver because it’s the SEC Chair that wields the real clout. But given where we are with a new SEC Chair to be sworn in over the coming months – and the fact that SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce worked with Paul Atkins when he was last an SEC Commissioner – I found Hester’s “Limited Mission” speech at the Northwestern Securities Regulation Institute conference to be interesting.
In her speech, Hester lists these seven steps as part of “a path toward more level, predictable terrain”:
- Remembering that both public companies and the SEC have limited missions.
- Fending off efforts to commandeer the SEC’s disclosure regime.
- Stopping the pressure on asset managers to push public companies into contentious social and political issues.
- Protecting investors from having their resources diverted to deal with shareholder proposals that are not aimed at maximizing corporate value (which includes re-examining the ownership thresholds in Rule 14a-8 and other available tools to ensure that a proponent has some meaningful economic stake or investment interest in a company).
- Refraining from using SEC enforcement actions to override managerial decision-making.
- Redoubling efforts by Corp Fin and the SEC’s Chief Accountant to provide guidance to companies about the many disclosure issues that arise in the normal course of business.
- Affirming the belief that our capital markets are designed to serve all Americans, regardless of their political ideology.
For more on this, see this blog post from Cooley’s Cydney Posner …speaking of the Northwestern conference, here’s an obligatory “Bald Men” pic featuring me, Keir Gumbs and Reid Hooper:
[View source.]
