On April 3, 2020, the SEC’s Chief Accountant, Sagar Teotia, issued a Statement on the Importance of High-Quality Financial Reporting in Light of the Significant Impacts of COVID-19 (the “OCA Statement”). The OCA Statement emphasizes that while the SEC Office of the Chief Accountant (“OCA”) appreciates the challenging environment that companies and their auditors face in attempting to comply with their financial reporting obligations due to COVID-19[1], and will not second-guess their reasonable judgments, OCA expects financial reporting to continue to “provide investors with high-quality financial information.” The OCA Statement also reaffirms OCA’s views on the importance of gatekeepers by pointing out the critical need for auditor independence in this uncertain economic environment. In addition to this general theme, the OCA Statement contains several notable points that will have implications for companies in the current situation, both in preparing their financial statements, and in taking steps to mitigate litigation and enforcement risk.
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SEC Provides Relief to Investment Advisers From Form ADV and Form PF Obligations due to Coronavirus
Update: On March 25, the SEC issued a new order that supersedes the original order discussed below. The new order (1) extends the time period for the relief from April 30 to June 30 and implies that future extensions may be possible, and (2) removes the conditions that an adviser provide a brief description of why it could not meet the deadline and the estimated date by which it expects to file the relevant Form or deliver its Brochure. Our blog post regarding the original order is below.
Continue Reading SEC Provides Relief to Investment Advisers From Form ADV and Form PF Obligations due to Coronavirus
OCIE Cybersecurity and Resiliency Observations and Best Practices
On January 27, 2020, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (“OCIE”) issued examination observations related to cybersecurity and operational resiliency practices (“Examination Observations”). The observations highlight a set of best practices by market participants in the following areas: (1) governance and risk management, (2) access rights and controls, (3) data loss prevention, (4) mobile security, (5) incident response and resiliency, (6) vendor management and (7) training and awareness. Cybersecurity has been a key priority for OCIE since 2012. Since then, it has published eight cybersecurity-related risk alerts, including an April 2019 alert addressing mobile security. OCIE has perennially included cybersecurity practices as part of its examination priorities (“Examination Priorities”) and listed all but mobile security as “particular focus areas” in the “information security” priority for 2020.
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Second Circuit: Criminal Fraud Statutes Do Not Require Prosecutors to Show that Tippers in Insider-Trading Cases Received a “Personal Benefit”
The Second Circuit has made it easier for federal prosecutors to bring insider-trading cases. In United States v. Blaszczak, decided on December 30, 2019, the Court held that the personal-benefit test—a judge-made rule that the government must prove a tipper expected to receive some benefit in exchange for disclosing confidential information—does not apply to
From the Expected to the Surprises: Highlights of SEC OCIE’s 2020 Priorities
On January 7, 2020, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (“OCIE”) released its 2020 Examination Priorities (“2020 Priorities”). While at first blush the themes appear consistent with and predictable from their 2019 priorities, on closer read OCIE has provided some new insights and some unexpected focus areas. The themes for the 2020 Priorities are: retail investors, information security, financial technology (“Fintech”) and innovation (including digital assets and electronic investment advice), several areas covering registered investment advisers and investment companies, anti-money laundering, market infrastructure (clearing agencies, national securities exchanges, alternative trading systems, transfer agents), and oversight of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board programs and policies. OCIE also stressed the challenges it faced in light of last year’s government shutdown and resource constraints, as the Division of Enforcement did in its 2019 Annual Report (see our analysis here), and the challenges in examining non-U.S. advisers due to limits that foreign data protection and privacy laws may place on cross-border information transfers. In this post, we analyze the highlights in and our takeaways from the 2020 Priorities.
Continue Reading From the Expected to the Surprises: Highlights of SEC OCIE’s 2020 Priorities
Headwinds and Shifting Priorities: Beyond the Numbers In The SEC Enforcement Division’s 2019 Annual Report
On November 6, 2019, the SEC’s Division of Enforcement released its annual report (the “Report”) describing its enforcement actions from fiscal year 2019.[1] Like prior reports, the Report quantifies the Division’s activities in a number of ways and discusses priority areas going forward. The Report also brings front-and-center certain challenges the Division has faced – including difficulties navigating recent Supreme Court decisions that call into question the constitutionality of the SEC’s administrative proceedings and the agency’s ability to obtain disgorgement, as well as the impact of the government shut-down and general resource constraints.
Continue Reading Headwinds and Shifting Priorities: Beyond the Numbers In The SEC Enforcement Division’s 2019 Annual Report
Supreme Court to Consider Whether the SEC Has Authority to Seek Disgorgement in Federal Court Actions: Will the Court Further Prune the SEC’s Enforcement Powers?
On November 1, 2019, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Liu v. SEC to decide whether the Securities and Exchange Commission can obtain disgorgement as an equitable remedy in federal court enforcement actions.
The certiorari grant in this case is unusual, because the circuit courts that have considered the issue have all agreed that the
SEC Brings Settled Action Against Mylan N.V. for Alleged Failure to Disclose Government Investigation
Companies that face non-public government investigations frequently confront challenging questions regarding whether and when to disclose the existence of the investigation, how much to disclose, and any duty to update the disclosure as the investigation proceeds. The SEC recently filed a settled complaint alleging that Mylan committed accounting and disclosure violations for failing to timely
SEC’s OCIE Affiliate Transaction Risk Alert Highlights Pitfalls in Obtaining Effective Consent
On September 4, 2019, the SEC’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (“OCIE”) issued a Risk Alert addressing the most common compliance issues it identified in examinations of investment advisers (“Advisers”) related to principal and agency cross transactions.
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SEC to Allow Settling Parties to Submit Simultaneous Settlement Offers and Applications for Waiver from Disqualifications
On July 3, SEC Chairman Jay Clayton issued a statement signaling a policy change in SEC settlements and the consideration of applications for waiver of collateral consequences flowing from those settlements, such as the loss of certain significant procedural advantages in (or even outright exemption from) the securities registration process.[1] In practice, this change could both streamline the process of settling enforcement actions with the SEC and provide additional certainty to settling entities, which, under the current regime, must decide whether to settle a matter before completing and knowing the outcome of negotiations over waivers.
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