President Barack Obama signed the Investor Protection and
Securities Reform Act of 2010 (the Act), also known as the
Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, into law
on July 21, 2010. Among many other reforms, the Act provides for a
number of important changes to the federal securities laws
regarding corporate governance and executive compensation, and also
includes an invitation for the SEC to consider reducing the burden
on smaller public companies of certain of the Act's new
provisions, as well as of several existing provisions under the
securities laws.
In many cases, the Act presents more questions than it answers,
since the majority of the changes call for further action by the
SEC and the stock exchanges. Given the scant legislative guidance
in some areas, companies and counsel will need to take a "wait
and see" approach until rules implementing the Act are
promulgated....
Specific Questions relating to this article should be addressed directly to the author.
In recognition of the problem that women are poorly represented on boards and in senior management positions, the ASX has followed the lead of other major stock exchanges around the world and introduced guidelines designed to increase diversity in Australian boardrooms.
At yesterday's open meeting of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), a split Commission approved rule amendments to permit shareholders to nominate directors for corporate boards.
The terms of the sale of a company’s shares are usually documented in a share purchase agreement (SPA). An SPA will typically list various warranties given by the seller to the buyer.
After the enactment of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill confirmed its authority to do so, the SEC moved quickly and has adopted proxy access rules—though the debate on this issue is far from over.
In this article I deal with schemes of arrangement under Part XVI of the PNG Companies Act ("Act") (Approval Of Arrangements, Amalgamations And Compromises By Court) as a means of combining companies under PNG law.
It has been announced that in April 2011 a new national system for business name registrations will commence. Each State of Australia has agreed to refer their business name registration powers to the Federal Government so that a uniform system can be established. The new system will be administered by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission [ASIC] which also controls the registration of companies.
Murray Deakin, head of the Competition & Regulatory Group at Middletons, speaks to Kate Ritchie of Boardroom Radio about the introduction of criminal sanctions for cartel conduct.
Royal assent was recently given to the Corporations Amendment (Corporate Reporting Reform) Act 2010. This legislation amends a number of provisions of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) (Corporations Act) dealing with financial reporting requirements of companies. In particular, a Corporations Act provision dealing with the payment of dividends has substantially changed.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (the "Commission"), by a 3-2 vote, adopted fundamental changes to the federal proxy rules that will require public companies to include shareholder director nominees in their proxy materials.
