On 14 August 2017, the SEC approved a rule change proposed by NYSE pursuant to which listed companies would be required to provide ten minutes' advance notice to the NYSE before making any public announcement about a dividend or stock distribution, including outside the hours of operation of the NYSE's "immediate release policy". Previously, this policy only applied to announcements made within the hours of operation of the "immediate release policy".
In this context, the NYSE indicated that "it intends to have its staff available at all times to review dividend or stock distribution notices immediately upon receipt, regardless of the time or date the notices are received. [...] The Exchange staff will contact a listed company immediately if there is a problem with its notification."
The NYSE has subsequently proposed to amend the rule to delay its implementation to no later than 1 February 2018. Listed companies will be provided reasonable advance notice of the new implementation date.
The order granting approval of proposed rule change is available at:
https://www.sec.gov/rules/sro/nyse/2017/34-81393.pdf
The NYSE proposal to further amend the rule is available at:
https://www.nyse.com/publicdocs/nyse/markets/nyse/rule-filings/filings/2017/SR-NYSE-2017-43.pdf
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