In calculating the amount of the disgorgement, an insider is required to pay the excess of (a) the highest sales price per share, over (b) the lowest purchase price per share, with respect to the covered securities involved in the matching transactions made within the six-month period. Small companies would be exempt from disclosing details on pensions and peer groups. The mandatory electronic filing of Forms 144 will commence on April 13, 2023. [4]In calculating the 5% test, a person is permitted to rely upon the issuers most recent quarterly or annual report for purposes of determining the amount of outstanding voting securities of the issuer, unless the person knows or has reason to believe that such information is inaccurate. SEC rules require your company to file annual reports on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q with the SEC on an ongoing basis. Schedule 13D must be amended promptly to reflect any material changes in the information provided. SEC amendments to Rule 10b5-1 take effect today. Separate Shareholder Report Requirements . In general, Schedule 13G is available to any reporting person that falls within one of the following three categories: Exempt Investors. These three types of Form 13F are: Any reporting manager that files a 13F Notice or 13F Combination Report must identify each other reporting manager that is responsible for a Form 13F filing that reports any Section 13(f) Securities over which such reporting manager shares investment discretion. Filings on Forms 3, 4, and 5 must be submitted to the SEC via EDGAR (unless a hardship exemption of the type specified in Regulation S-T applies).[27]. For example, the sale of a warrant to purchase common stock of a public company would be matched with any purchase of the common stock of that public company occurring within six months for purposes of determining short-swing profits under Section 16(b). The Society for Corporate Governance (the "Society" or "we") appreciates the opportunity to provide comments to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC" or the "Commission") on the proposed changes to the reporting threshold for Form 13F reports by institutional investment managers (the "Proposed Rules"). An annual Form N-PX filing will be due by August 31 of each year thereafter to report the say-on-pay votes during the most recent 12-month period ended June 30. On September 23, 2020, the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") announced that it had adopted amendments to Rule 14a-8 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the "Amendments"). Since the 5% threshold for a Qualified Institution is calculated as of the end of a calendar year, a Qualified Institution that acquires directly or indirectly more than 5% of a class of an issuers Section 13(d) Securities during a calendar year, but as of December 31 has reduced its interest below the 5% threshold, will not be required to file an initial Schedule 13G. The proposed annual shareholder report disclosure requirements would have an 18-month compliance period. 13F Holdings Report, on which a reporting manager includes all Section 13(f) Securities over which it or any other reporting manager exercises investment discretion; 13F Notice, on which a reporting manager indicates that all Section 13(f) Securities over which it exercises investment discretion are reported on a Form 13F filed by another reporting manager; and. To avoid a short-swing profits violation, before entering into a transaction involving any covered securities (including any exercise of a derivative security), an insider should look back six months to determine if any prior sale or purchase can be matched with the proposed transaction and would result in the realization of any profit. The three quarterly filings are required even if the aggregate fair market value of the Section 13(f) Securities held in a reporting managers discretionary accounts falls below the $100 million threshold during the calendar year. [5]Under Rule 13d-1, a reporting person also qualifies as a Qualified Institution if it is a bank as defined in Section 3(a)(6) of the Exchange Act, an insurance company as defined in Section 3(a)(19) of the Exchange Act, an investment company registered under the Investment Company Act, or an employee benefit plan, savings association, or church plan. [31] Under proposed Rule 10B-1, a person would be subject to the reporting requirement if any of its security-based swap positions exceed any of the following thresholds: (a) for credit default swaps (CDS), the lesser of: (i) a long notional amount of $150 million, after taking into account the notional amount of any long positions in the debt security underlying the CDS, (ii) a short notional amount of $150 million, or (iii) a gross notional amount of $300 million; (b) for swap positions based on debt securities that are not CDS, a gross notional amount of $300 million; and (c) for swap positions based on equity securities (an equity swap position), the lesser of: (i) a gross notional amount of $300 million, but if the gross notional amount of the equity swap position exceeds $150 million, the calculation of the gross notional amount would also include the value of the reporting persons position in the equity securities underlying the swaps (based on the most recent closing price of shares), plus the delta-adjusted notional amount of any options, security futures, or any other derivative instruments based on the same class of equity securities, or (ii) an equity swap position that represents more than 5% of a class of equity securities, but if the equity swap position represents more than 2.5% of a class of equity securities, the calculation would also include in the numerator all of the underlying equity securities owned by the reporting person as well as the number of shares attributable to any options, security futures, or any other derivative instruments based on the same class of equity securities. Proposed Changes to Filing Deadlines. While not set out in Section 16 or the rules thereunder, the concept of deputization has been found by the courts where a securities firm is acting as a director of a public company through its deputy and (a) the director shares confidential information with the firm, (b) the director influences the firms investment decisions with respect to the public company, or (c) the directors actions as a director are influenced by the firm. In order to receive your filing codes, you must first submit a Form ID to the SEC. entry into and termination of a material definitive agreement (a copy of the agreement must also be publicly filed); completion of an acquisition or disposition of assets, notice of a delisting or failure to satisfy a continued listing rule or standard or transfer of listing, material modifications to rights of security holders, changes in your company's certifying accountant, election of directors, appointment of principal officers, and departure of directors and principal officersand, it has more than $10 million in total assets and a class of equity securities, like common stock, that is held of record by either (1) 2,000 or more persons or (2) 500 or more persons who are not accredited investorsor, it lists the securities on a U.S. exchange, is current in its ongoing annual reports required pursuant to, has total assets as of the end of its last fiscal year not in excess of $25 millionand, has engaged the services of a transfer agent registered with the Commission pursuant to Section 17A of the Exchange Actor, is required to file and is current in filing annual, semiannual and special financial reports under Securities Act Rule 257(b), had a public float of less than $75 million as of the end of its last semiannual period, or if it cannot calculate its public float, had less than $50 million in annual revenue as of the end of its last fiscal year and, engaged a transfer agent registered pursuant to Section 17A of the Exchange Act. A fund will be required to provide a table showing the expenses associated with a hypothetical $10,000 investment in the fund during the preceding reporting period in two formats: (1) as a percent of a shareholder's investment in the fund ( i.e., expense ratio), and (2) as a dollar amount. On November 2, 2022, the SEC adopted Rule 14Ad-1 under the Exchange Act that will require any manager to annually report its proxy voting record with respect to the securities of any public company over which it exercises voting power[18] regarding the shareholder advisory votes on (a) the compensation paid to the public companys executives, (b) the frequency of the executive compensation approval votes, and (c) any so-called golden parachute arrangements in connection with a merger or acquisition (collectively, say-on-pay votes). Section 16: Reports of Directors, Officers, and Principal Shareholders. [19] Under Rule 16a-1(f), the officers of a public company which are subject to Section 16 are (a)the president, (b) the principal financial officer, (c) the principal accounting officer or controller, (d) any vice president of the issuer in charge of a principal business unit, division, or function, (e) any other officer who performs a policy-making function, or (f) any other person who performs a similar policy-making function for the public company. In order for a control person to file a Schedule 13G as a Qualified Institution, however, no more than 1% of a class of an issuers Section 13(d) Securities may be held (a) directly by the control person or (b) directly or indirectly by any of its subsidiaries or affiliates that are not Qualified Institutions. Previously, companies could file Form 144 in paper format, which many reporting persons elected to use. There will be increased and more complex web-hosting requirements. Key Takeaways. As an associate, I worked directly with and advised over 15 public companies on corporate and securities law compliance, board and corporate governance . For example, investment advisers (whether or not they are registered), broker-dealers, banks, trustees, and insurance companies are all institutional investment managers. Mandatory Electronic Filing of Form 144. An insider must report on Form 4 any change that occurs with respect to its beneficial ownership interest in the public companys equity securities. SEC's proposed disclosure requirements for public companies. It's only reasonable for shareholders to expect that an organization's board will be committed to effective oversight, turning to metrics and more to monitor and assess performance. Form 13H requires that a Large Trader, reporting for itself and for any affiliate that exercises investment discretion over NMS securities, list the broker-dealers at which the Large Trader and its affiliates have accounts and designate each broker-dealer as a prime broker, an executing broker, and/or a clearing broker. Form 13H filings with the SEC are confidential and exempt from disclosure under the United States Freedom of Information Act. Loans made in the ordinary course of business at market rates by issuers that are financial institutions or in the business of consumer lending are excepted from the prohibition. A material change includes, without limitation, a reporting persons acquisition or disposition of 1% or more of a class of the issuers Section 13(d) Securities, including as a result of an issuers repurchase of its securities. In that case, each control person would file a 13F Notice as described above. As discussed above, each reporting person has an independent reporting obligation under Section 13 of the Exchange Act. If a securities firm has multiple affiliates in its organization that qualify as Large Traders, Rule 13h-1 permits the Large Traders to delegate their reporting obligation to a control person that would file a consolidated Form 13H for all of the Large Traders it controls. [25] See Rule 16a-6 under the Exchange Act. [20]For the purpose of determining a persons initial insider status, Section 16 incorporates the definition of beneficial ownership in Section 13(d). A securities firm (and, in some cases, its parent company or other control persons) generally will have a Section 13 reporting obligation if the firm directly or indirectly: Section 16(a) of the Exchange Act requires that directors and officers of a company that has a class of securities registered under Section 12 of the Exchange Act (a public company), as well as persons who beneficially own more than 10% of any class of equity security which is registered under Section 12 of the Exchange Act (other than any exempted security), file reports with the SEC on Forms 3, 4, and 5. Provide updated disclosure on previously disclosed cybersecurity incidents in 10-Ks and 10-Qs. Instead, we recommend that you make EDGAR filings through an outside vendor. This new reporting requirement will be effective on July 1, 2023, and the initial filing of Form N-PX by a current reporting manager will be due by August 31, 2024 and disclose its say-on-pay votes during the period from July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024. Registration statements and prospectuses become public shortly after filing with the SEC. [26] For example, Rule 16a-3(g) under the Exchange Act provides that, in the case of a transaction made pursuant to (a) a contract, instruction, or written plan that satisfies the affirmative defense conditions of Exchange Act Rule 10b5-1(c), or (b) an employee benefit plan at the volition of a plan participant, where the insider does not select the date of execution of such transaction, the two-day filing requirement for Form 4 with respect to the transaction is calculated from the earlier of (i) the date a broker-dealer or plan administrator notifies the insider of the execution, and (ii) the third business day after the trade date. The Firms Obligations. The determination of who each of the control persons of a firm are for purposes of Section 13 reporting is very fact-specific and also may have important ramifications with respect to such control persons obligations and liabilities under Section 16 of the Exchange Act, particularly relating to insider reporting and short-swing profits. Paul Hastings has an arrangement with an outside vendor to make EDGAR filings for our clients, and would be willing to do so as requested. If a reporting person that previously filed a Schedule13G no longer satisfies the conditions to be an Exempt Investor, Qualified Institution, or Passive Investor, the person must switch to reporting its beneficial ownership of a class of an issuers Section 13(d) Securities on a Schedule 13D (assuming that the person continues to exceed the 5% threshold). The time frame depends on whether the issuing company is subject to reporting requirements under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. For purposes of Section 16, an insider is (a)adirector of the public company, (b)a designated officer of the public company,[19] or (c) a person who beneficially owns[20] more than 10% of any class of equity security (other than an exempted security) which is registered under Section 12 of the Exchange Act (a 10% beneficial owner). When beneficial ownership of a Qualified Institution with no previous Section 13 filing exceeds 10% at month end, 10th Day after the Month in which the 10% threshold exceeded, 3. An agreement to act together does not need to be in writing and may be inferred by the SEC or a court from the concerted actions or common objective of the group members. For example, a direct or indirect control person of a securities firm will not qualify as a Qualified Institution if more than 1% of a class of an issuers Section 13(d) Securities is held by a private fund managed by the firm or other affiliate because a private fund is not among the institutions listed as a Qualified Institution under the Exchange Act. A Large Trader must file an initial Form 13H promptly after effecting aggregate transactions equal to or greater than one of the identifying activity levels. Section 16 of the Exchange Act applies to an SEC reporting company's directors and officers, as well as shareholders who own more than 10% of a class of the company's equity securities registered under the Exchange Act. Obligations of a Firms Clients. Obligations of a Firms Control Persons. Any control person (as defined below) of a securities firm, by virtue of its ability to direct the voting and/or investment power exercised by the firm, may be considered an indirect beneficial owner of the Section 13(d) Securities. When a person or group of persons acquires beneficial ownership of more than . There is no requirement that a Passive Investor limit its acquisition of Section 13(d) Securities to purchases made in the ordinary course of its business. A reporting person who is not eligible to use Schedule 13G must file a Schedule13D within 10 days of such reporting persons direct or indirect acquisition of beneficial ownership of more than 5% of a class of an issuers Section 13(d) Securities. It includes any person who directly or indirectly shares voting power or investment power (the power to sell the security). This no-action letter has given rise to what practitioners refer to as the rule of three, which provides that, where voting and investment decisions regarding an entitys portfolio are made by three or more persons and a majority of those persons must agree with respect to voting and investment decisions, then none of those persons individually has voting or dispositive power over the securities in the entitys portfolio and, thus, none of those persons will be deemed to have beneficial ownership over those securities. In February 2022, the SEC proposed new Rule 13f-2 under the Exchange Act[28] that, if adopted, would require any institutional investment manager with investment discretion over accounts with large short positions[29] to file monthly reports with the SEC on a confidential basis. We can also provide the names of additional vendors for your consideration. Most of the "less retail-focused" information now in prospectuses and shareholder reports would be required to be on mutual funds' websites and also filed with the SEC on Form N-CSR. In order to avoid duplicative reporting of the same Section 13(f) Security, the reporting managers must arrange to file one of the three different types of Form 13F. Individualized outreach to large holders should be a priority. In lieu of using Form 5, an insider may choose to report a transaction on Form 4; however, the voluntary Form 4 must be timely filed before the end of the second business day following the day on which the transaction that triggered the filing has been executed or otherwise deemed to occur. Reports filed with the SEC can be viewed by the public on the SEC EDGAR website. 13F Combination Report, on which a reporting manager includes some, but not all, of the Section 13(f) Securities over which it exercises investment discretion, and indicates that the remaining securities are reported on a Form 13F filed by another reporting manager. Conclusion We respectfully submit this letter in opposition to the For any securities firm that becomes a reporting manager after July 1, 2023, the initial Form N-PX will be due for the 12-month period ending June 30 of the calendar year following the due date of its initial Form 13F filing (e.g., if the reporting managers initial Form 13F is due on February 15, 2025, then the initial Form N-PX will be due by August 31, 2026 to disclose any say-on-pay votes during the period from July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026). In the proposed rule release, the SEC directs approximately 200 requests for comment to the investment adviser and fund industry relating to each element of the rule proposal as it looks to finalize the rules. Shareholders could request paper or electronic copies of the information moved to the website at no cost. Form 4 Statement of Changes of Beneficial Ownership of Securities. The certified financial statement must include a two-year audited. The vendor engaged by Paul Hastings charges a service fee for each filing. Produce a simple summary of these requirements so that our group can ensure we comply with these statutory requirements on our investments. Form 13H: Reporting Identifying Information for Large Traders. However, Section 929R of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act eliminated that obligation. As an example, a reporting manager exercises voting power when it votes (or directs another party to vote) in accordance with the reporting managers voting policies or uses its independent judgment or expertise to determine how a clients voting policies should apply to a say-on-pay vote, or when it influences the decision of whether to vote a security, such as determining whether to vote on a say-on-pay matter or whether to recall loaned securities in advance of a vote. Because EDGAR submissions require the use of specialized software, we do not recommend that you make EDGAR filings yourself unless you fully understand the process. Both Schedule 13D and Schedule 13G require background information about the reporting persons and the Section 13(d) Securities listed on the schedule, including the name, address, and citizenship or place of organization of each reporting person, the amount of the securities beneficially owned and aggregate beneficial ownership percentage, and whether voting and investment power is held solely by the reporting persons or shared with others. Schedules 13D and 13G: Reporting Significant Acquisitions and Ownership Positions. A reporting person that is required to switch to reporting on a Schedule 13D will be subject to a cooling off period from the date of the event giving rise to a Schedule 13D obligation (such as the change to an activist intent or acquiring 20% of a class of an issuers Section 13(d) Securities) until 10calendar days after the filing of Schedule 13D. 1 Twitter 2 Facebook 3RSS 4YouTube Section 16 of the Exchange Act and the rules thereunder impose certain obligations on insiders of any public company. Positions of Investment Managers with More than $100Million in Discretionary Accounts, Proxy Votes by Investment Managers with More than $100Million in Discretionary Accounts, of Directors, Officers, and Principal Shareholders, at the time of the registration of the companys equity, https://www.filermanagement.edgarfiling.sec.gov, https://www.sec.gov/rules/proposed/2022/33-11030.pdf, http://www.sec.gov/divisions/investment/13flists.htm, https://www.sec.gov/rules/proposed/2022/34-94313.pdf, https://www.sec.gov/rules/proposed/2021/34-93784.pdf, Corporate (Private Equity, Fusions & Acquisitions, Marchs de Capitaux), International Regulatory Enforcement (PHIRE), Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021(CAA) Machine Readable Files, registered under Section 12 of the Exchange Act, manages discretionary accounts that, in the aggregate, purchase or sell any NMS securities (generally exchange-listed equity.