Regulatory & Compliance

This week’s governance, compliance and risk-management stories from around the web -Chinese e-commerce giants Temu and Shein say that they will be raising their extremely cheap prices for US customers as of next week, according to the Associated Press. The increase is in response to US President Donald Trump’s tariffs of up to 145 percent on goods from China. While Temu is publicly traded in the US under its parent company PDD Holdings, Shein is not, after a failed IPO in the US. Nearly identical statements posted on their sites read: ‘Due to recent changes in global trade rules and…

Opinion – Plus an introduction to our new reporter Companies are pulling their guidance in droves amid US President Donald Trump’s game of back and forth with tariffs. Last week, Walmart pulled its first quarter guidance over the fracas. Hours later, Trump rescinded many tariffs but increased those on goods from China to a total of 145 percent. Delta Airlines also backpedaledguidance given ‘current uncertainty’. Trump appears to be testing the idiom coined by Benjamin Franklin –‘In this world nothing can be said to be certain, exceptdeathandtaxes’ – upon completing the US Constitution. Those taxes are now entirely uncertain, as…

This week’s governance, compliance and risk-management stories from around the web – On Wednesday the US Senate confirmed Paul Atkins as the chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Bloomberg reported (paywall). He was approved in a 53-44 vote in his favor and replaces the outgoing Gary Gensler. –Atkins is expected to make it easier for companies to go public in the US and to ease up on enforcement, Politico reported. Atkins is a former SEC commissioner who left the organization during 2008’s financial crash. In his time away from the SEC, he has been vocally critical of the…

This week’s governance, compliance and risk-management stories from around the web Sidley Austin’s Derek Zaba and Kai Liekefett explore the potential impact of the so-called ‘liberation day’ tariffs on the upcoming proxy season. In their shareholder activism update this week, they discuss how these tariffs, and the resulting economic volatility, could influence shareholder activism. As AGM season approaches in the US, economic uncertainty can present practical challenges for activists who need to remain invested in companies for longer periods and may struggle to exit the stock if they gain board seats, which prompts the authors to ask: ‘Will tariffs be…

This week’s governance, compliance and risk-management stories from around the web – The SEC voted to end its defense of the agency’s climate risk disclosure rule changes. Acting chair Mark Uyeda said in a statement: ‘The goal of today’s commission action and notification to the court is to cease the commission’s involvement in the defense of the costly and unnecessarily intrusive climate change disclosure rules.’ Following the vote, SEC staffer sent a letter to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals stating that the commission withdraws its defense of the rules and that SEC lawyers are no longer authorized to advance…

This week’s governance, compliance and risk-management stories from around the web – Reuters reported that, according to people familiar with the matter, Anson Funds is preparing for a boardroom fight at Match Group and plans to nominate several directors to the online dating company’s 10-member board. Anson has been pressing the parent company of dating sites Tinder, Hinge and OkCupid for more than a year to rethink capital allocation, cut costs and consider a strategic review of its MG Asia business, the people said. The investor has also raised concerns about Match’s governance and pushed for management to refine its…

This week’s governance, compliance and risk-management stories from around the web – CNBC reported that the Trump administration said it will continue using strict guidelines adopted by the administration of former President Joe Biden to review proposed corporate mergers. The decision to retain the guidelines, which have been widely disliked by companies, was detailed by Federal Trade Commission (FTC) chair Andrew Ferguson and a memo by Omeed Assefi, the acting head of the US Department of Justice’s (DoJ) antitrust division. The announcement is a blow to Wall Street, which had been looking forward to more M&A activity under a loosened…

‘[This] moves the goalposts smack dab in the middle of this year’s shareholder proposal process,’ says commissioner Caroline Crenshaw The SEC has dropped Biden-era guidance on the parameters by which companies may seek the agency’s go-ahead to exclude shareholder proposals from their proxy statements. It is a move that will likely lead to fewer ESG-related resolutions making their way to a vote at future AGMs and comes as many companies are awaiting word from the agency on whether they will have to face certain proposals at their 2025 meetings. Many governance experts had predicted that the division would take such…