Corporate governance has changed dramatically in the nearly 13 years since passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and in the nearly five years since enactment of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. Likewise, the level of shareholder engagement and institutional investor expectations regarding governance practices have also changed significantly. The passage of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act in April 2012, which helped spur a dynamic initial public offering market, raised concerns among certain groups that new initial public offering ("IPO") candidates would view certain of the accommodations available under the Act as a rationale to relax certain governance practices and to rely on phase-in periods. However, emerging growth companies, or EGCs, availing themselves of the JOBS Act's Title I "IPO on-ramp" provisions, generally have adopted rigorous governance policies and procedures.
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