Form 8-K
Skadden Discusses a Board’s Role in Oversight of Cybersecurity Risks
Key Points
- New SEC rules from 2023 require public companies to report material cybersecurity incidents promptly and detail their cybersecurity risk management strategies in annual reports — requirements that increase the risk of litigation over misstatements relating to cybersecurity.
- The
Wachtell Lipton Discusses Compensation Season 2024
In contrast to the volatility that vexed the economy in 2022, markets rose in 2023 as inflation fell and the labor market remained strong. Entering 2024, ongoing international instability, rapidly changing technology and the United States presidential campaign are certain …
Skadden Discusses FBI, DOJ, and SEC Guidance on Disclosing Cybersecurity Incidents
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adopted final rules in 2023 that are intended to enhance and standardize disclosures regarding cybersecurity risk management, strategy, governance and incident reporting by public companies (including foreign private issuers). The SEC Form 8-K …
Skadden Discusses What SEC’s Solar Winds Complaint Means for Boards, Information Security Officers
On October 30, 2023, the SEC filed a litigated complaint against SolarWinds, a software development company, and Timothy Brown, its chief information security officer (CISO). The SEC alleges that from October 2018, when SolarWinds went public, to January 2021, SolarWinds …
How EU and U.S. Disclosure Requirements Differ While Sharing the Same Goals
Financial markets and securities regulation in the European Union and the United States are converging in an increasing number of areas, from the repression of market manipulation to the provision of stricter requirements for market gatekeepers, such as auditing firms …
How Changes to Form 8-K Disclosure Rules Affect Corporate Innovation
Studies have shown that the disclosure of information can affect a company’s technological innovation in different ways, depending on how complete or timely it is. The complete disclosure can promote innovation by making capital providers more receptive to providing financing, …
How to Reform Our Abysmal Insider Trading Framework
The U.S. insider trading framework is a mess. Principles apply that are inconsistent with one another and that treat similarly situated persons in a disparate manner. In my 2021 book and a forthcoming book chapter, I argue that, rather than …
How Companies Distract Investors When Disclosing Bad News
SEC regulations require public firms to disclose any “material event” on a form 8-K filed within a certain time period. These events include earnings announcements, changes in an executive or director, changes in auditor and the issuance of new debt …
The SEC’s Proposed Cyber 8-K Disclosure
Management Guidance Withdrawals During the Pandemic
The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has drastically affected the global economy and offers a unique setting to investigate firm and market behavior through periods of heightened economic uncertainty. During the pandemic, many U.S. public firms withdrew their quarterly and annual …
Disclosure Procedure
Each year, U.S. public companies spend millions of people-hours producing the securities disclosures that undergird public capital markets. But relatively little is known about how firms produce such consequential information, including whether they are spending too much, too little, or …
Cahill Gordon Discusses SEC Action Against Cheesecake Factory for Misleading COVID-19 Disclosures
On December 4, 2020, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it had settled charges against The Cheesecake Factory for making material misstatements concerning the impact of COVID-19 on its business operations and financial condition.[1] The settlement resolved charges …
Riding the Mania of Blockchain: Public Firms’ Speculative 8-K Disclosures
The price of Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency based on blockchain technology, increased dramatically from less than a penny when it was launched in 2009 to $900 in January 2017 and peaked at over $19,500 in December 2017. This rise coincided with …
What Happens When an Activist Goes on the Board?
After over a year of work, which included the review of some 635,450 Form 8-Ks filed by 7,799 public companies from January 1, 2000, to September 30, 2016, we think we know at least one answer to the question in …
Economic Consequences of Hiring Wall Street Analysts as Investor Relations Officers
Investor relations (IR) connects the preparers of financial information with its users, aiming to facilitate efficient and effective interaction between the firm and the investment community. Historically, the IR function has been viewed as a communications role, and the investor …