ANALYSIS: New SEC Reporting Rules—Simpler or Just Different?

The SEC has been leading “spring-cleaning exercises” for years to simplify financial reporting and investor disclosures while maintaining appropriate investor protections. These actions, individually and collectively, are designed to modernize outdated disclosure requirements, eliminate unnecessary ones, improve the readability of disclosure documents, and lower compliance costs. The challenge is to streamline the process while making sure investors get the information they need to make informed decisions.

How is it going?

A few examples of the SEC’s rulemaking efforts in 2019 may help gauge the agency’s progress thus far: 1) the proposed amendments to Regulation S-K, the SEC’s central disclosure resource, ...