Securities Law Blog

The SEC staff will be actively monitoring the extent to which public companies and other market participants are identifying and addressing risks associated with the expected discontinuation of LIBOR, a common system of interest rates for financial transactions, past 2021.

On June 27, 2019, the Delaware Chancery Court entered an injunction requiring the boards of trustees of two closed-end investment funds (the “Funds”) to count the votes in favor of director candidates nominated by shareholder Saba Capital at the annual meetings scheduled for July 8, 2019.  Saba Capital had timely given notice of its nominations in compliance with the Funds’ advance notification bylaws.  In a response weeks later, the Funds asked that the nominees complete a supplemental questionnaire, which had “nearly one hundred questions over forty-seven pages, and was due in five business days.”  The Funds declared the nominations invalid after Saba Capital missed the five-day deadline for submitting the questionnaires.  In the case captioned Saba Capital Master Fund, Ltd. v. BlackRock Credit Allocation Income Trust, et al., Vice Chancellor Zurn granted Saba Capital’s request for injunctive relief, finding that the Funds’ rejection of the nominations submitted by Saba Capital violated the Funds’ bylaws. As discussed in this Client Alert, the Court’s ruling is consistent with views recently expressed by Olshan that overzealous defense advisors continue to “cross the line” by using onerous, overbroad questionnaires as traps to thwart shareholder nominations and chill activist campaigns. 

The SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy warns investors to be skeptical of endorsements from famous influencers marketing new investment opportunities.

Prof. McClane’s extensive 20-year study of IPOs finds that, although boilerplate - as a substitute for specific disclosure and costly information gathering - may be an efficient (and perhaps strategically vague) means by which to make disclosure, efficiency comes at a high price to IPO issuers due to information-related costs such as underpricing and securities litigation.

Fraudsters may use SEC forms and filings to falsely claim SEC registration or that an offering was approved by the SEC. Don’t confuse that with the actual vetting by the SEC staff of disclosure during the review process and acceleration of effectiveness of a registered securities offering.

Letters to prospective investors like those included in the Lyft and Uber IPO prospectuses may be symbolic gestures by founders, chairpersons and CEOs to lead the selling effort, but nonetheless provide an insight into the unique mission, core beliefs and “karma” of today’s newest IPO companies, with the SEC closely monitoring the bounds of this informal disclosure.

The proposal would allow companies to more effectively consult with potential institutional investors to better identify acceptable offering terms in advance of a public offering, as compared to the current practice of repeated registration statement amendments to calibrate the public markets.

New SEC rules adopted in 2018 simplify certain disclosure requirements and amend the definition of smaller reporting company.

Companies need to contribute to society, says BlackRock Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink, to deliver long-term financial growth and profitability and, ultimately, to attract and retain the support of institutional investors.

In order to avoid undue delay caused by the current partial government shutdown, issuers may wish to remove the “delaying amendment” on the face of their registration statements to become effective automatically after a 20-day statutory period following the filing. The SEC’s operations plan for the shutdown also includes this suggestion. Lack of the SEC’s normal review and clearance of registration statements raises policy questions.