September 2025 One-Minute Reads

SEC launches ‘Project Crypto’

In response to the report from the President’s Working Group on Digital Asset Markets, and in alignment with this executive order, titled “Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology,” Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Paul Atkins unveiled the launch of the SEC’s “Project Crypto” during this speech, and also issued this statement. Atkins said:

I have directed the Commission staff to draft clear and simple rules of the road for crypto asset distributions, custody, and trading for public notice and comment. While the Commission staff works to finalize these regulations, the Commission and its staff will in the coming months consider using interpretative, exemptive, and other authorities to make sure that archaic rules and regulations do not smother innovation and entrepreneurship in America.

This Law360 article further discusses the speech, and that Atkins will use the president’s working group report as a blueprint to craft rules and exemptions. This Law360 article discusses how the report sets the most work for the SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission by directing the agencies to institute a multitude of safe harbors and exemptions for crypto activities, as well as guidance on how existing standards apply in crypto contexts.

See this TheCorporateCounsel.net blog for more highlights from the speech, this White House fact sheet and this TheCorporateCounsel.net blog for more information on the report.

SEC launches new statistics and data visualization web page

The SEC announced a new statistics and data visualization page that includes statistics and graphics on key elements of the capital markets, such as initial public offerings, exempt offerings, corporate bond offerings, reporting issuers, municipal advisors, transfer agents and household participation in the capital markets. The web page provides statistics presented in time series charts to show market trends, pie charts to show distribution across different categories and heat maps to show geographic distributions. The visuals are interactive, allowing the public to explore the information in which they’re interested. The new page can be found on the SEC’s website under Data & Research. For more information, see this Governance Beat post.

SEC decreases 2026 registration fee rate

The SEC announced that effective October 1, there will be a reduction in the fee rate for registering securities from $153.10 to $138.10 per $1,000,000.

This new rate applies to registrations of securities under:

• Section 6(b) of the Securities Act of 1933
• Section 13(e) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (repurchases)
• Section 14(g) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (proxy solicitations and specified tender offers)

The SEC is required to adjust these rates annually, as well as rates under Rule 24f-2 of the Investment Company Act of 1940.

For more information, see the SEC’s Order Making Fiscal Year 2026 Annual Adjustments to Registration Fee Rates. Reminder: update any fee calculation materials to reflect the new fee rate.

Update on executive compensation roundtable comment letters

As previously mentioned, the SEC hosted a roundtable meeting to discuss potential updates to the existing executive compensation disclosure requirements in June and solicited comments from stakeholders about what form any updates should take. As of August 19, more than 60 substantive comments had been submitted, including one from Cooley, along with 1,000+ comments generally following one of two standardized forms. All of the comments are publicly available on the SEC website. Per this CompensationStandards.com blog, high-level themes of the comments include: enhance accommodations for smaller reporting companies; streamline the tables and make all disclosures more principles-based; and modernize rules about perks. This brief letter – which advocates for expanded disclosure rules and expressly supports CEO pay ratio disclosures and clawback requirements – has been submitted by 1,025 people. This letter, submitted by 19 retail investors, focuses more on perks, but also calls out pay ratio disclosure as material information. For more information on the Cooley letter, see this August 20 Cooley alert and this Governance Beat post.

ISS plans ESQS methodology update

ISS Sustainability Solutions announced it will in the fourth quarter of 2025 implement an update to its Environmental & Social Disclosure QualityScore (ESQS) scoring methodology. As part of the methodology update, 35 factors will be added, including more detailed data points regarding Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions, business ethics, and health and safety. For approximately 20 factors, new answer options will be added to better account for company-specific assessments. Nine factors will be removed entirely, with another two factors removed from some industries due to their decreasing relevance. Issuers within the coverage universe will have an opportunity to verify the new data in late September 2025, before which ISS Sustainability Solutions will provide more granular details on the nature and scope of the planned enhancements.

EFRAG publishes updated European Sustainability Reporting Standards and opens public consultation

The European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) has published drafts of the updated European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), which are now open for public consultation. The ESRS are the mandatory reporting standards for European Union companies subject to the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). The objective of changing the ESRS was to simplify and streamline the requirements, as well as to provide clarity and legal certainty based on the learnings from the first wave of CSRD reports. For details on the proposed amendments to the current ESRS version, see this August 7 Cooley alert and this Governance Beat post.

CARB holds second public workshop

On August 21, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) held a virtual public workshop to refine implementation of the state’s corporate climate disclosure laws – Senate Bills 253 and 261 (amended by SB 219). At the workshop, CARB said it is planning to issue proposed rules for the two regulations on October 14 and expects its board to consider final regulations on December 11 – 12 of this year. The agency also issued a projected cost of compliance for the laws and shared the disclosure timeline for companies covered by SB 253 to disclose their Scopes 1 and 2 emissions for the first time. According to the meeting’s slides, companies covered by SB 253 should expect to report their Scopes 1 and 2 emissions by June 30, 2026. CARB estimates covered entities affected by SB 253 will have to pay an annual fee of $3,106, and SB 261-covered entities will have a $1,403 annual compliance fee. Covered entities with more than $1 billion in revenue will be subject to both fees. For more detailed information on the workshop and the regulations, see this August 25 Cooley alert and this ESGDive article.

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