Here are three short videos from our week of Conferences this week – this first one shows the sheer size of our plenary session on Tuesday (1900 attendees in person and many more online):
Our exhibitors like to make the Conferences fun – check out this pig race from Radford in our Exhibit Hall (attendees placed their business card on which pig they thought would win – and if your pig won, you earned a prize):
On Tuesday night, I sat in the right field bleachers of the Cubs game – behind me were a row of rooftops rented out by different exhibitors for various attendees of the Conferences (if you haven’t seen this phenomenon in person, this rooftop directory gives you an indication of its popularity):
Yesterday, Reuters ran the article below (entitled “US senator wants to reopen Wall St bill”) indicating that there is sentiment from some Republicans to revisit some of Dodd-Frank if they make gains in Congress during the mid-term elections:
Republicans will reopen the broad Wall Street reform law and overhaul the newly created consumer protection bureau if they regain control of Congress after the November elections, a leading lawmaker said on Monday. Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the powerful Senate Banking Committee, said lawmakers must revisit the legislation enacted this summer, which is the broadest overhaul of financial rules since the Great Depression. “The bill is so sweeping and such a game changer in many ways that it’s incumbent upon us to revisit it,” Shelby told the Reuters Washington Summit. The bill, one of the Obama administration’s legislative victories, will impose new restrictions on every aspect of Wall Street.
But lawmakers are already trying to change the bill, even though it was only signed into law in July. And that’s before the November midterm elections, which could see Republicans gaining further influence, if not control, over Congress. The House Financial Services Committee, which oversees financial regulators, is now considering tweaks to one of the bill’s provisions related to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
If Democrats lose control of Congress, Republicans may try to tear apart the contentious legislation they mostly all opposed. “The consumer agency bothers me the most,” said Shelby, who failed to reach a compromise with Democrats and voted against the bill. “I thought the creation of it and the way it was created was a mistake,” he said.
Under the Dodd-Frank bill, banking regulators are stripped of their consumer supervisory duties and the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau gains the power to write and enforce rules for mortgages, credit cards and other financial products. “I don’t believe it’s good for business, it’s not good for the financial sector and ultimately I don’t believe it’s going to be good for credit for a lot of people who need it. It’s gonna cost,” Shelby said. But Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, warned against Congress reopening the law, saying banks already face enough regulatory uncertainty.
“I think to go back and completely reopen it now with a whole other set of question marks and uncertainties about what people are supposed to be doing … I hope people would think hard about that,” Bair told the Reuters Washington Summit. Christopher Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and one of the bill’s main authors, said it may be hard for Republicans to rollback the bill or water down the consumer bureau as the Treasury Department has already begun to put it together.
“I think if they (Treasury) do it and it gets going then I think the job that Richard Shelby and others have in mind of undermining and gutting (the bureau) will be difficult,” Dodd told the Reuters summit. Dodd added that Republicans would likely target the bureau’s budget and “gut it financially.” Republicans despise the consumer bureau and have long argued that consumer protections should not trump the safety and soundness of banks. They fear that the bureau would hurt the availability of credit by burdening banks with piles of new regulations.
They were also upset with the appointment of Wall Street critic Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard professor, to help set up the consumer watchdog. “I believe she’s got a big ax to grind and she’s sharpening that ax,” said Shelby. “I don’t think that you need somebody in a position like that with all these preconceived ideas and I believe she has a lot of them.”
Today is the “7th Annual Executive Compensation Conference“; yesterday was the “5th Annual Proxy Disclosure Conference” and the video archive of that Conference is already posted. Note you can still register to watch online by using your credit card and getting an ID/pw kicked out automatically to you without having to interface with our staff. Both Conferences are paired together; two Conferences for the price of one.
– How to Attend by Video Webcast: If you are registered to attend online, just go to the home page of TheCorporateCounsel.net or CompensationStandards.com to watch it live or by archive (note that it will take about a day to post the video archives after it’s shown live). A prominent link called “Enter Today’s Conference” on the home pages of those sites will take you directly to today’s Conference.
Remember to use the ID and password that you received for the Conferences (which may not be your normal ID/password for TheCorporateCounsel.net or CompensationStandards.com). If you are experiencing technical problems, follow these webcast troubleshooting tips. Here is today’s Conference Agenda; times are Central.
– How to Earn CLE Online: Please read these FAQs about Earning CLE carefully to see if that is possible for you to earn CLE for watching online – and if so, how to accomplish that. Remember you will first need to input your bar number(s) and that you will need to click on the periodic “prompts” all throughout each Conference to earn credit. Both Conferences will be available for CLE credit in all states except for a few (but hours for each state vary; see the CLE list for each Conference in the FAQs).
Today is the “Tackling Your 2011 Compensation Disclosures: The 5th Annual Proxy Disclosure Conference“; tomorrow is the “7th Annual Executive Compensation Conference.” Note you can still register to watch online by using your credit card and getting an ID/pw kicked out automatically to you without having to interface with our staff. Both Conferences are paired together; two Conferences for the price of one.
– How to Attend by Video Webcast: If you are registered to attend online, just go to the home page of TheCorporateCounsel.net or CompensationStandards.com to watch it live or by archive (note that it will take about a day to post the video archives after it’s shown live). A prominent link called “Enter Today’s Conference” on the home pages of those sites will take you directly to today’s Conference.
Remember to use the ID and password that you received for the Conferences (which may not be your normal ID/password for TheCorporateCounsel.net or CompensationStandards.com). If you are experiencing technical problems, follow these webcast troubleshooting tips. Here is today’s Conference Agenda; times are Central.
– How to Earn CLE Online: Please read these FAQs about Earning CLE carefully to see if that is possible for you to earn CLE for watching online – and if so, how to accomplish that. Remember you will first need to input your bar number(s) and that you will need to click on the periodic “prompts” all throughout each Conference to earn credit. Both Conferences will be available for CLE credit in all states except for a few – but hours for each state vary; see the CLE list for each Conference in the FAQs.
If you don’t register today with our HQ, you can still walk-up in Chicago and register by bringing a check or credit card to pay the applicable amount when you arrive. In addition, you can register online with a credit card as late as you want and get an ID/password sent to you automatically to enter the Conference and watch (in fact, you can even do so after Monday as the video of the panels will be archived for nine months – so you can watch them anytime if you have a conflict with the Conference schedule or whenever you want a refresher). Register Now.
Updated: “Printable Set of Course Materials”
For the most relevant of our voluminous set of Course Materials, we have created a single PDF of “Printable Set of Course Materials.” This set was updated today as we just received two last sets of charts that will be referred to during Tuesday’s Conference. [Note that these will be handed out in Chicago – no need to print and lug if you don’t want to.] If you have already printed off this set, these are the two new additions that you can print rather than printing the entire set again:
– for the 1:45 internal pay equity panel, this set of charts from Don Delves
– for the 2:20 inadvertent gains panel, this set of charts from George Paulin
In this recent survey conducted by Corporate Board Member and FTI Consulting, executive compensation topped the list with 41% of the respondents listing it as a major concern (all the more reason to attend our upcoming week of executive pay conferences). Here is the list:
It’s interesting that proxy access is listed at the bottom, somewhat confirming my belief that those who view access as an apocalyptic event may be overreacting…
We recently released our latest reports on stock ownership guidelines for officers and directors. For officers, we found that 80.6 percent of Fortune 250 companies disclosed ownership guidelines, alone or in combination with holding requirements, in 2009. That’s a small rise from 2008, when 78.3 percent of companies disclosed them. In addition, 40.1 percent of F250 companies disclosed holding requirements, alone or in combination with ownership guidelines, in 2009. It’s a big jump from 2008, when 35.5 percent of companies disclosed them. Most of this rise is attributable to plans that use ownership guidelines and holding requirements in tandem. And the median value of target stock ownership for CEOs was approximately $6 million in 2009, roughly the same as in 2008.
On the director side, our new study found that 84.0 percent of Fortune 250 companies have some kind of ownership policy–an increase from 2008, when 82.1 percent had one. At companies with an ownership policy, the prevalence of ownership guidelines rose from 77.5 to 79.3 percent, while the prevalence of holding requirements rose from 19.2 to 19.8 percent. The median value of the target stock ownership level for directors was $262,850 in 2009.
For those seeking CLE credit, here’s a list of states in which credit is available for watching the Conferences live in Chicago and by video webcast. Note that the list is broken out for each of the Conferences – and note that a few states are listed as “pending” (check back to determine if the Conferences are approved in those states as we will be updating the list).
Act Now: As happens so often, there is now a mad rush for folks to register for these Conferences that begin on Monday, September 20th. With an aggregate of over 50 panels (including the “18th Annual NASPP Conference”), if these Conferences don’t help get you prepared for the upcoming proxy season of change, nothing will. You can either register for the three days of the “18th Annual NASPP Conference” (in Chicago) – or the two days of the “5th Annual Proxy Disclosure Conference” & “7th Annual Executive Compensation Conference” (in Chicago or by video webcast) or a combination of both. Note that we just extended the length of the last panel of the” 5th Annual Proxy Disclosure Conference” to cover proxy access in more depth. Register Now.
The September-October Issue of The Corporate Executive includes pieces on:
– A Legacy of the Bush Administration Comes to an End: Planning Now for 2011 Tax Rate Increases
– Which Tax Rates Are Really Changing (and for Whom)?
– Paying 2011 Bonuses in 2010?
– Accelerating Vesting for Restricted Stock and Unit Awards
– Section 83(b) Elections for Restricted Stock
– Possible Actions for Non-Qualified Stock Options
– Internal Pay Equity–Getting a Head Start
– Institutions and Proxy Advisors Will be Focused on Internal Pay Equity
– Respected CEOs Weighing In
– How Should Internal Pay Equity be Used by a Compensation Committee?
– What Is the Right Ratio – Why the Historical Analysis Is So Important
– Your Upcoming Proxy Disclosure – An Opportunity for the Company to Tell Its Own Story
– How to Make the Calculations – How to Craft the Proxy Disclosures
A few months ago, the SEC issued this litigation release to note that the US District Court for the Northern District of California had, among other things, ordered forfeiture of bonuses and stock sales pursuant to Section 304(a) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act against Carl Jasper, the former CFO of Maxim Integrated Products, for his role in a fraudulent stock options backdating scheme.