Good morning, Chairman Quigley, Ranking Member Womack, and members of the Subcommittee. I’m honored to appear before you for the second time as Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission. It is good to be here alongside Federal Trade Commission
Voting is important in the modern public corporation. Shareholders often vote on corporate referendums, they vote to elect directors, and the directors vote on major corporate policies. Yet, despite the significance of voting, there has been little research exploring whether
Significant volatility continues to disrupt the equity markets, with the major stock indexes swinging multiple percentage points often on a daily basis. Inflation, rising interest rates, the Ukraine crisis, continuing effects of Covid-19, lasting supply chain issues, a difficult regulatory
Securities class actions (SCA) are an important governance mechanism in the U.S. securities market, but there is a significant debate about their costs and benefits to investors. SCA are intended to serve two key functions in investor protection: disciplining and
Corporate payouts have reached record levels. Over the past half-century, publicly-held U.S. firms have more than tripled inflation-adjusted dividends, while real share repurchase values have ballooned from $5 billion in 1971 to almost $1 trillion in 2018 and become the
Ordinarily at an event like this one, I’d speak about all the ways in which we are working to protect investors, including our increased focus on the private fund space, the additional resources we’ve committed to our Crypto Assets and
On May 3, 2022, the Division of Corporation Finance (“CorpFin”) of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) provided guidance to companies of their disclosure obligations with respect to the direct or indirect impact that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and
The shareholder proposal has long been an effective tool for shareholders to bring emerging corporate governance issues to the attention of a company’s board of directors, its managers, and their fellow shareholders. Over time, shareholder proposals have driven a variety
The CFPB plans to use its authority to examine any company providing consumer financial products or services that the CFPB has “reasonable cause” to believe poses risks to consumers.
The CFPB has announced its intention to invoke its “dormant” statutory
Vast corporate growth over more than a century has weakened shareholder voting rights, as highlighted by, among other things, the rise of dual-voting stock IPOs. The extent of that growth, and the lack of people’s power to negotiate with