A data verification period for Institutional Shareholder Services’ (ISS) new Environmental & Social Disclosure Quality Score questions opened for companies on July 10, 2023 and will remain open until July 21, 2023. The data verification process reflects a comprehensive update to ISS’s Environmental & Social Disclosure QualityScore scoring methodology, which ISS previewed in April 2023 and elaborated on in a June 2023 announcement.
ESG
Updated Summary of Director Education Opportunities Now Available
Gibson Dunn’s summary of director education opportunities has been updated as of July 2023. A copy is available at this link. Boards of Directors of public and private companies find this a useful resource as they look for high quality education opportunities.
Updated Summary of Director Education Opportunities Available
Gibson Dunn’s summary of director education opportunities has been updated as of April 2023. A copy is available at this link. Boards of Directors of public companies find this a useful resource as they look for high quality education opportunities.
Updated Summary of Director Education Opportunities Available
Gibson Dunn’s summary of director education opportunities has been updated as of January 2023. A copy is available at this link. Boards of Directors of public companies find this a useful resource as they look for high quality education opportunities.
Long-Awaited SEC Rule Proposal on Climate Change Disclosure
Overview
On March 21, 2022, the Securities and Exchange Commission approved a rule proposal for new climate change disclosure requirements for both U.S. public companies and foreign private issuers.
Now Available: Considerations for Preparing Your 2021 Form 10-K
As we do each year, we offer our observations on new developments and recommended practices for calendar-year filers to consider in preparing their Form 10-K. This alert reviews the recent amendments to Regulation S-K adopted by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and discusses how public companies are reacting to these new requirements.
ISS Proposes and Opens Comment on Draft 2022 Voting Policy Updates
Yesterday, the proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services (“ISS”) proposed and published for comment voting policy changes for the 2022 proxy season. There are five proposed updates that would apply to U.S. companies, including two related to “Say on Climate” proposals and a third related to climate issues.
SEC Staff Scrutiny of Climate Change Disclosures Has Arrived: What to Expect And How to Respond
Recently, the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance has issued a number of comment letters relating exclusively to climate-change disclosure issues. The letters we have seen to date comment on companies’ most recent Form 10-K filings, including those of calendar year companies who filed their Form 10-K more than 6 months ago, and have been issued by a variety of the Division’s industry review groups, including to companies that are not in particularly carbon-intensive industries. Many of the climate change comments appear to be drawn from the topics and considerations raised in the SEC’s 2010 guidance on climate change disclosure, as reflected in the sample comments that we have attached in the annex to this alert. We expect this is part of a larger Division initiative because the letters are similar (although not identical), contain relatively generic comments, and have been issued in close proximity to one another. Accordingly, it is reasonable to expect that additional comment letters will be issued in the coming weeks and months.
What Can We Expect from the SEC with COP26 Around the Corner?
Climate change matters and related calls for regulation are in headlines daily. On August 9, 2021, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published the first major international assessment of climate-change research since 2013. The IPCC report will inform negotiations at the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference, also known as COP26, beginning on October 31, 2021 in Glasgow.