By: Cydney Posner

At a conference yesterday, the SEC's Director of Corporation Finance, John White, provided two new pieces of information about the SEC's new executive compensation rules:

  • The new rules are expected to be published in the Federal Register this Friday. The holdup has been that the Federal Register would not accept the SEC's final rule release as is because it includes something in the nature of a "reproposal" of the Katie Couric rule. Apparently, it is not permissible to combine final rules and proposed rules in the Fed Reg. As a result, the rules as published will be different from those currently posted as final on the SEC's website, in that the release will be separated into its two component parts. If it is published on Friday, the new rules would become effective on November 7.
  • After several public back-and-forths on this issue, the SEC has now decided to take the (final) position that the executive compensation disclosure rules may be early adopted, once the rules become effective, so long as all of the S-K disclosure rules are early adopted (402, 404, 407). The phase-in transition rules contained in the release would generally apply. This position would be most likely to affect September year-end companies and companies filing for IPOs. The SEC intends to issue some FAQs covering transition and perhaps other issues. As I understand it, there is no early adoption for the Form 8-K changes.

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