After spending seven years as a proposal in limbo, the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") adopted a "Pay Versus Performance" rule in August of 2022, finally meeting the statutory mandate set forth in the Dodd-Frank Act. (Candance Quinn, et. al., Bloomberg Law). As the rule’s name implies, SEC registrants must now disclose the interplay between their executive compensation actually paid and the company's financial performance. (PricewaterhouseCoopers). An additional requirement under the new rule has drawn scrutiny as it opens the door for Environmental Social Governance ("ESG") disclosures to be made…
Read MoreThere is a long history of celebrities promoting various products and investments that did not turn out well for the individuals who acted on their advice. (Joe Mont, TheStreet). 50 Cent using Twitter to “pump” up the share price of a business he partially owned is one notable example. (Id.; Mike Masnick, TechDirt). FTX, a large crypto exchange which many celebrities publicly endorsed, collapsed in November 2022 in no small part due to fraud by its CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried. (Tietrich Knauth & Tom Hals, Reuters; Nathan Reiff, Investopedia). This public endorsement by various celebrities appears to be another example of celebrities scamming their fans...
Read MoreIn the past months, the stock market has seen the longest stretch of losses since 2001. (Tripp Mickle, New York Times). As investors adjust to the onset of a “bear market,” a market persistently declining in value, some venture-capital firms (“VC”) are changing their focus from investing exclusively within the startup industry to purchasing stocks of publicly traded companies. (Merriam-Webster; Berber Jin, Wall Street Journal). Inflation in the United States is at a 40-year high, and the Federal Reserve has continued to raise interest rates to combat it. (Nick Timiraos, Wall Street Journal). The market has been strained by the current interest rates, as well as the war in Ukraine, supply chain issues, and other factors…
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