Further to our earlier report, the SEC noticed a meeting to consider whether to issue a Request for Comment on the nature and content of quarterly earnings releases & reporting for Wednesday, December 19th. The previously scheduled December 5th meeting to consider this issue was cancelled in honor of President Bush. Additional meeting agenda items include Dodd-Frank's disclosure of hedging by employees or directors (which is on the SEC's Fall 2018 Reg-Flex agenda active actions list) (see our topical page here), and the PCAOB's 2019 budget & accounting support fee.
In last week's Society Alert, we noted that the WSJ reported that Corp Fin Director Bill Hinman said "the SEC plans to ask companies about the 'interplay' between quarterly earnings announcements and the 10-Q quarterly filing" - the notion being "to reduce duplication of work and narrow the time between a company's earnings release and the filing of its 10-Q."
And in his SEC Oversight Hearing testimony earlier this week before the Senate Banking Committee (reported on here), SEC Chair Clayton stated:
Finally, I believe it is important to encourage long-term investment in our country. I expect that the Commission will soon consider a release soliciting input on how we can reduce compliance burdens on reporting companies with respect to quarterly reports while maintaining, and in some cases enhancing, investor protections. There is an ongoing debate regarding our approach to mandated quarterly reporting and the prevalence of optional quarterly guidance, and whether our reporting system more generally drives an overly short-term focus. I encourage all market participants to share their views and to let us know if there are other aspects of our regulations that drive short-termism inappropriately.