Regulatory & Compliance

Agency had been defending the rule but Republican commissioners oppose it Acting SEC chair Mark Uyeda has asked an appeals court to pause litigation over the agency’s high-profile climate risk disclosure rule. The commission adopted the rule on a 3-2 vote last March. It has subsequently been challenged in litigation consolidated in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. The SEC under former chair Gary Gensler, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, had stayed the effectiveness of the rule pending an outcome to the litigation in which it defended the rule. Uyeda and fellow Republican commissioner Hester Peirce have long…

This week’s governance, compliance and risk-management stories from around the web – The BBC reported that President Trump halted enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) that allows the prosecution of Americans accused of bribing foreign officials. The law prohibits US companies from trying to retain or win new business with other countries by bribing government figures. A White House statement said ‘over-expansive’ and ‘unpredictable’ enforcement of the FCPA risked the ‘economic advancement of the US.’ Trump has also directed US authorities to review current and past actions related to the law and to find new guidelines for the…

Suggestions that EU legislation may be watered down in upcoming Omnibus package So much for double materiality. Rumors have been swirling around ESG-focused news outlets that the European Commission is expected to ‘heavily water down’ the requirements of its landmark CSRD and Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) legislations in its upcoming Omnibus package. Reported changes to CSRD could include making companies with less than 1,000 employees exempt from having to report under the regulation, estimated to mean that around 85 percent of firms covered by the directive would no longer be in scope. Other aspects at risk include the…

This week’s governance, compliance and risk-management stories from around the web – CNN reported that President Trump also rescinded a nearly 60-year-old executive order that prohibited government contractors from discriminating in their hiring, firing, promotion or pay practices. Instead, there is a new requirement that those employers certify they do not have what he termed ‘illegal’ diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) programs. He also ordered each federal agency to identify up to nine targets for federal investigations into their DE&I practices to see if they should be judged ‘illegal.’ That includes public companies, large non-profit corporations or associations and major…

This week’s governance, compliance and risk-management stories from around the web – The Wall Street Journal (paywall) reported that Honeywell International said it was considering a potential separation of its aerospace business, about a month after activist investor Elliott Investment Management called for the company to break itself up. Honeywell said its board continued to explore strategic alternatives and plans to provide an update on its portfolio review with its fourth-quarter results early next year. ‘Honeywell is now well-positioned for significant transformational alternatives, and we are continuing our deeper, more granular exploration of their feasibility and possible timing,’ chair and…

Governance Intelligence spoke with Elizabeth Ising about some of the nominees’ work Governance Intelligence recently presented our 17th annual Corporate Governance Awards at a gala event in New York. We spoke with several distinguished attendees on the red carpet before the ceremony, including Eleanor Lacey, general counsel and corporate secretary at Asana. Asana was shortlisted in the best use of technology category. One of the company’s innovations was to use an AI ESG chatbot alongside its 2024 ESG report, and we asked Lacey to tell us more about how it works. We also asked about how else AI might help…

This week’s governance, compliance and risk-management stories from around the web Governance Intelligence recently presented our 17th annual Corporate Governance Awards at a gala event in New York. We had the chance to speak with some of the distinguished attendees on the red carpet before the ceremony, among them Brady Long, executive vice president and chief legal officer at Transocean. Transocean was shortlisted in the Best shareholder engagement (small to mid-cap) category. Among other things, the company’s engagement program includes meetings with shareholders focused solely on governance topics and an emphasis on including directors in the process. We asked Long…

This week’s governance, compliance and risk-management stories from around the web – CNBC reported that Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares resigned amid increasingly ‘different views’ between the executive and the board, the company said. The world’s fourth-largest carmaker said its board accepted Tavares’ resignation. His departure was effective immediately. Stellantis said that its process to appoint a new CEO is ‘well under way’ and that it expects to conclude the search during the first half of next year. Until then, the company said it will establish a new interim executive committee led by chair John Elkann. ‘Stellantis’ success since its creation…

This week’s governance, compliance and risk-management stories from around the web – The Wall Street Journal (paywall) reported that Macy’s delayed its quarterly results after the company found that an employee had hidden up to $154 mn in corporate delivery expenses over several years, prompting an investigation. Macy’s said a single employee, responsible for small-package delivery expense accounting, had intentionally made erroneous bookkeeping entries since late 2021. The individual didn’t take the amounts in question and the company declined to say how it uncovered the erroneous entries or how it went undetected by the company’s auditor, KPMG. Macy’s said it…