Columbia Law School
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SEC
Why We Need Mutual Fund Boilerplate
Mutual fund disclosures read, unsurprisingly, like the legal documents they are—full of terms of art, legalese, and stock language about performance, fees, and investment risk. It is tempting to dismiss disclosures as “boilerplate”—a four-letter word in the law, belittling the …
SEC Commissioner Peirce Discusses Proposed Regulation E-Delivery
Today [July 16], in a long-awaited move, the Commission proposed Regulation E-Delivery to make electronic delivery the default under the securities laws for issuers, investment advisers, investment companies, and broker-dealers. This rulemaking focuses on the default delivery method; not the …
Cleary Gottlieb Discusses SEC’s 2026 Rulemaking Agenda
The SEC’s 2026 rulemaking agenda and statement of regulatory priorities recently went public as part of the federal governments overall 2026 Regulatory Plan. The agenda lists 38 potential SEC rulemakings and reflects Chairman Atkins’s broadly deregulatory orientation, with proposals …
Skadden Discusses SEC Plan to Amend Investment Adviser Pay-to-Play Rule
On July 3, 2026, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released its updated regulatory agenda for 2026. The agenda, which is required to be updated semiannually under the Regulatory Flexibility Act, includes an ambitious 38 items. Notably, as part …
Sustainability Assurance
Assurance providers, a type of green gatekeeper, certify the accuracy of sustainability information. In a new paper, we analyze the market for assurance services, asking whether they should be regulated and, if so, how.
Assurance providers do with sustainability-related …
SEC Chair Speaks at Society for Corporate Governance Conference
Before I offer a few reflections, I must note that the views I express here today are my own as Chairman and do not necessarily reflect those of the SEC as an institution or of my fellow Commissioners.
Of course, …
Sullivan & Cromwell Discusses Parallel DOJ and SEC Spoofing Actions Against Fund Founder and Investment Manager
On June 25, 2026, the Department of Justice announced the guilty plea of Mingran Wang, the alleged founder and investment manager of Greenroots Capital Management, for an alleged multi-year securities-fraud scheme involving more than 3,000 instances of “spoofing.” Wang pleaded …
SEC Chair Comments on Commission’s 2026 Regulatory Agenda
The 2026 Regulatory Agenda reflects the robust rulemaking we are pursuing under my chairmanship. Now that we are just over one year into my tenure, we have made significant progress in returning the agency to its core mission of protecting …
Wachtell Lipton Discusses SEC Expansion of Five Business Day Debt Tender Offer Criteria
On June 30, 2026, the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance published an exemptive order (the “Debt Order”) permitting tender offers for non-convertible debt securities with a minimum offering period of five business days (a “Five Business Day Tender Offer”) if …
Davis Polk Discusses Potential SEC and CFTC Updates to Classification Rules for Innovative Financial Products
The SEC and CFTC (the “Commissions”) have jointly requested public comment on how to draw clearer regulatory boundaries for classifying, within statutory bounds, innovative derivatives and related products that implicate the jurisdiction of the Commissions and whether there are opportunities …
Shadow SEC Statement No. 10: The SEC’s Proposed Climate “Do-Over”—Prejudged, Internally Inconsistent, and Partisan
More than two years after the SEC adopted final climate disclosure rules, the SEC has now proposed not to modify, improve, or trim them, but to rescind them entirely. This proposed action is at odds with the fact that more …
SEC Chair Atkins Speaks at the Economic Club of New York
First, let me begin by expressing what a profound privilege it is to speak to the Economic Club of New York. Of course, this occasion is rendered especially meaningful—and even, serendipitously, a greater honor—by its timing, as we stand mere …
Shadow SEC Statement No. 9: Shock and Awe—The Commission’s 1934 Act Blunderbuss Revisions
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s sweeping assault on the 1934 Act’s continuous disclosure system is misguided and likely to do more harm than good.
The tens of proposed changes in the requirements appear to be based on the belief that …
Morrison & Foerster Discuss SEC Proposal Scaling Back Executive Compensation Disclosure for Most Public Companies
On May 19, 2026, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) released proposed amendments (Release No. 33‑11419) that it has described as the most significant overhaul of public company reporting in two decades. While the proposal is broad—touching filer …
Paul Weiss Discusses Semiannual Reporting, Potential Flexibility, and Practical Realities
Early last month, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) released proposed rules to allow U.S. public companies to report their financial statements on a semiannual instead of quarterly basis. The proposed amendments, if adopted, would allow companiesthe option …
How Shareholder Activism in the U.S. and Japan Converged
In a recently published paper I argue that the recent surge in shareholder activism in Japan is not simply the product of Japanese policy reforms. Rather, it results from a convergence of two parallel historical trajectories: a decades-long evolution of …
Regulation by Delay and the SEC’s Unfinished Wells Reform
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s recent reforms to the Wells process under Chairman Paul Atkins represent an important effort to restore procedural fairness to the Enforcement Division’s investigative process. The Commission’s revisions emphasize greater transparency, increased access to investigative materials, …
SEC Commissioner Speaks on Transatlantic Challenges in Law, Business & Policy
Thank you, Łukasz [Chyla], for that kind introduction. I appreciate the opportunity to take part in the 4th US-CEE Connection Weekend, especially during the year that the United States celebrates the 250th anniversary of its Declaration of Independence.…
Mirror Voting
Index funds now cast roughly a quarter of the shareholder votes at America’s largest companies. Yet the investors whose money they manage have little say in how those votes are cast, and the funds themselves would often rather not cast …