The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will hold a roundtable next month to discuss executive compensation disclosure rules, which Chair Paul Atkins said have grown “increasingly complex and lengthy.”
“It is less clear if the increased complexity and length have provided investors with additional information that is material to their investment and voting decisions,” Atkins said in a statement Friday, when the SEC announced the June 26 roundtable.
Industry groups heavily criticized the agency under the prior administration for eschewing informal industry input before launching ambitious rulemakings. Roundtables and other listening sessions are back in favor under President Donald Trump, with the SEC already having hosted several related to digital assets.
Just days into his job, Atkins told reporters that he had a list of policy goals “as long as my arm.” Now the new chair is steadily unveiling some of his list — including revisiting the executive compensation disclosure rule instituted in 1992.
“It is important for the Commission to engage in retrospective reviews of its rules to ensure that they continue to be cost-effective and result in disclosure of material information without an overload of immaterial information,” Atkins said said in the statement.
The SEC requires public companies to annually disclose information about the amount and type of compensation for chief executive officers, chief financial officers and the three most highly paid executive officers. Public firms also have to reveal how they made such decisions and how much pay is tied to corporate performance.
In line with Trump’s promises of looser regulation, the SEC plans to ask staff and the public to consider issues such as the level of detail related to executive compensation that’s material to investors and which rules are the toughest to comply with, according to the Atkins statement.
Regulatory roundtables are primarily a consultive process. But they do provide a chance for regulators, industry representatives and other stakeholders to give feedback on compliance, costs, benefits and other effects.
That, in turn, can often inform future rules or agency guidance.