Tuesday, October 24, 2017, 9:30 AM to 1:00 PM
@Gore Recital Hall, CFA :
While the SEC’s recent focus on non-GAAP measures has garnered attention in the boardroom, it is only one example of increased attention from regulators and others, including shareholders, on the Board’s role in telling a company’s story through disclosure oversight and engagement.
This panel will explore:
- Legal boundaries for directors: What is the fiduciary duty of the board in the oversight of disclosure?
- Board best practices in the oversight of disclosure: How and when does the board become involved? What are the audit, compensation and governance committees’ roles? What is the role of the management disclosure committee? How does the audit committee interact with the management disclosure committee? What is the board’s oversight role in:
- On-going regular company disclosures (e.g., 10-Ks, 10-Qs, 8-Ks, earnings releases)
- When the board itself generates the information (e.g., board policies re diversity, director independence, board structure, CEO compensation, etc.)
- Information where the board has a special level of responsibility (e.g., risk oversight, ESG, sustainability disclosures, MD&A trends)
- When the disclosure itself is the substance (i.e., financial statements, non-GAAP)
- The investor perspective: What do shareholders want to see from boards in their oversight of disclosure and in their own committee reports? Has the increase in investor and director engagement affected disclosure?
- SEC Disclosure Effectiveness: What are the new administration’s priorities for the SEC’s Disclosure Effectiveness Initiative?
The participants include:
- Eileen R. Cohen, Managing Director, US Equity, JPMorgan Asset Management
- Robert Evans III, Chief of the Office of International Corporate Finance, Division of Corporation Finance, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
- Margaret (Peggy) M. Foran, Chair of the Occidental Petroleum Compensation Committee; and Chief Governance Officer, SVP and Corporate Secretary, Prudential Financial, Inc.
- Cynthia M. Fornelli, Executive Director, Center for Audit Quality
- Douglas L. Maine, Limited Partner and Senior Advisor for Brown Brothers Harriman & Co.; Director, Audit Committee Chair, and member of the P&C Committee, Orbital-ATK Inc.; Director, Audit Committee Chair, and member of the N&G Committee, BroadSoft, Inc.; Director and member of the Audit and N&G Committees, Albemarle, Inc.
- The Honorable John W. Noble, Partner, Morris James LLP; former Vice Chancellor, Delaware Court of Chancery
- Sharon A. Virag, Vice President, Controller and Chief Accounting Officer, AETNA
- John W. White, Partner, Corporate Department, and Chair of Corporate Governance & Board Advisory Practice, Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP
Moderator: Charles M. Elson, Director of the Weinberg Center, Edgar S. Woolard Chair in Corporate Governance, and Professor of Finance, University of Delaware
Materials
Prudential Financial 2017 Proxy Statement
2016 Audit Committee Transparency Barometer
2017 Audit Committee Transparency Barometer
Non-GAAP Financial Measures – Continuing the Conversation
Articles