Corporate Governance Update: The Broadening Basis for Business Judgment
The Securities and Exchange Commission recently revised the periodic disclosure requirements of Regulation S-K, the latest installment in the SEC's ongoing effort to improve the quality of public disclosures, write Corporate Governance columnists David A. Katz and Laura A. McIntosh.
September 23, 2020 at 01:29 PM
9 minute read
The Securities and Exchange Commission recently revised the periodic disclosure requirements of Regulation S-K, the latest installment in the SEC's ongoing effort to improve the quality of public disclosures. In many instances, the new rules replace prescriptive requirements with flexible guidelines intended to elicit company—and industry-specific information that is material to investors' understanding of the company's business. The SEC's move toward a principles-based disclosure framework centered on materiality can be understood as part of a trend in the United States and Europe toward increasing the scope of board and management discretion. For most of their history, U.S. public corporations were widely understood to be profit-driven enterprises governed by a rule-based corporate law regime designed to protect and advance the financial interests of shareholders. There is now a growing transatlantic view that corporations should be better understood as purpose-driven entities working toward "sustainable profitability" and guided by ethics, social responsibility, and values, all as defined by the board of directors in its business judgment. While the business judgment rule in the United States will continue to protect decisions made in good faith by unconflicted directors, one consequence of expanding the purpose of the corporation would be that directors' decisions need no longer be targeted to the singular goal of maximizing shareholder returns.
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