Gary Gensler Gets Aggressive: Highlights From a Busy Year at The SEC

Administration change often brings a flurry of rulemaking across the federal regulatory system, and with President Biden’s appointment of Gary Gensler to take the wheel at the Securities and Exchange Commission, most industry observers expected a regulatory sea change in securities law. That did not happen immediately, as the SEC largely avoided major regulatory activity in 2021. But in 2022, the shoe has dropped in the form of myriad noteworthy rule proposals.

While practitioners will note the significance of the SEC’s new requirements regarding cybersecurity disclosures, abrupt reversal of President Trump-era proxy oversight rules, and proposed amendments targeting ‘greenwashing’ by allegedly sustainability-focused investment funds, two major initiatives have headlined the 2022 season to date.

First, on March 21, 2022, the SEC issued its long-awaited rule proposal that would impose new climate-related disclosure requirements on public companies, requiring them to disclose greenhouse gas emissions and the business risks related to severe weather events and the transition to a smaller carbon footprint.

Just over a week later, on March 30, 2022, the SEC released proposed rules intended to enhance investor protections in initial public offerings  by special purpose acquisition companies and in subsequent business combination transactions between SPACs and private operating companies. With 613 SPAC registrations comprising 63% of all U.S. IPOs in 2021, the SEC’s oft-stated concerns regarding potential abuse of this trending deal structure crystalized in an aggressive set of specialized disclosure requirements that quickly put a damper on an overheated SPAC market.

Public companies and their counsel await the issuance of final rules in each of these areas. LexisNexis provides a host of resources to help practitioners track further developments, as well as to respond with state-of-the-market client advice when the rubber hits the road.

Practical Guidance Capital Markets and Corporate Governance
Practical Guidance, integrated into the Lexis+® experience and available within the legacy Lexis® platform, provides practice notes, annotated templates, checklists, trackers, and legal developments articles that both equip users with deep background on general public company disclosure requirements, SPACs, and climate change disclosure, as well as offer resources to help attorneys react to the SEC’s latest regulatory action. 

Practical Guidance SEC Proposed and Adopted SEC Rules Tracker
For securities attorneys seeking to stay current on the latest SEC proposed and adopted rules, Practical Guidance Capital Markets & Corporate Governance offers the SEC Proposed and Adopted SEC Rules Tracker.  This resource offers editorial summaries of all the latest SEC rulemaking activity, together with effective dates, and links to both the applicable SEC releases as well as available Practical Guidance practice notes and articles.

Practical Guidance Legal Developments
Legal Developments provide deep dive impact analysis of key SEC rulemakings to help securities attorneys to quickly get beyond the headlines and assess the key components of regulations potentially impacting their clients. With integrated content from Law360® and pre-Client Alert Digests that aggregate analysis with links to relevant primary law documents, law firm client memos, legal news articles, and Practical Guidance practice notes, Legal Developments allow practitioners to quickly get up to speed.

Current Awareness Resources on Lexis+
For comprehensive coverage of key events in securities law, no platform offers a broader collection of legal and financial news information than Lexis+. With legal news from Law360 and 60+ American Lawyer Media® publications, together with up-to-date and fully archived access to The Wall Street Journal® and myriad other must-read newspapers, securities practitioners can stay abreast of the latest events in real-time.

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