Some public companies have requested the SEC to permit exclusion of proxy access proposals by stating the shareholder proposal directly conflicts with the issuers own proposal that will be included in the proxy statement. The practice began when Whole Foods was recently successful in obtaining SEC relief.
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There are some surprise winners in the plan to create the new national cooperative securities regulator: class action lawyers.
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The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) have implemented significant amendments to the oil and gas disclosure requirements contained in National Instrument 51-101 Standards of Disclosure for Oil and Gas Activities (NI 51-101), its Companion Policy (CP 51-101) and related forms and notices. The changes affect both general, ongoing disclosure relating to oil and gas activities and specific annual disclosure requirements. The amendments are effective July 1, 2015, meaning that the changes to the annual disclosure requirements will apply in respect of the year ending December 31, 2015 for issuers with a December 31 year end.
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There was a significant increase in oil and gas M&A and related financing activity in 2014 compared to 2013. By the end of November the value of M&A transactions was over $46 billion, more than three times the aggregate value for the same period in the previous year.
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With a new year upon us and a new Republican majority in both the
House and Senate, there are a host of regulatory and legislative issues
that will impact the private equity ind
ustry in 2015. Here, in no
particular order, are 10 regulatory and legislative matters that private
equity professionals should keep an eye on this year.
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Activist investing has never been polite. But their battles could get even uglier in 2015 as hedge funds continue their trend toward piling into the same stocks.
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Wealthy investors are poised to put at least $90 billion into hedge funds next year, even after returns have largely been lackluster this year, research firm eVestment said on Tuesday.
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Campaigning also encourages smaller companies to name women to all-male boards, says CalSTRS.
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From the point of view of CFOs and other senior finance executives at public companies, the issue of what and how much to reveal in the financial statements has become a game of chicken. Regulators, moving toward a wholesale cleanup of the massive factual and analytical disclosures that have accumulated over many years, are encouraging filers to preemptively step forward and make the edits themselves. The problem, though, is that lawyers have long been counseling companies to do just the opposite: err on the side of insignificant disclosures and repetitive boilerplate to make sure they don’t break laws or get sued for omitting a detail or two.
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Time may be running out for senior statesmen on U.S. corporate boards.
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The Securities and Exchange Commission is calling on companies to tighten accounting procedures and controls pertaining to statement of cash flows, amid a steady rise in restatements associated with that rather nettlesome financial document.
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