On the heels of Climate Week NYC, the largest climate summit of 2020, CFOs, controllers, and internal audit specialists are realizing just how critical the participation of the finance team can be in supporting sustainability and ESG reporting workflow. The topic has taken on greater urgency as more companies plan for the disclosure of climate-related financial risk in their SEC and stakeholders; communications using guidelines established by the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).

The market for SPACs, or special purpose acquisition companies, is “shattering all previous records,” according to Craig Clay, President of Global Capital Markets for Donnelley Financial Solutions. In a September 16^th webinar hosted by J. P. Morgan, Clay noted that as of mid-September, 95 SPACs with a valuation of approximately $35 billion had priced year to date. What’s more, 43 other SPACs are currently on file with the SEC, pending pricing. This stands in dramatic contrast to 2019, when just 59 SPACs were priced during the full 12-month period.

The Data Coalition’s two-day, virtual GovDATAx program, devoted to data policy and titled “An American Mission: Leveraging Data for the Public Good,” will be held on September 29th and 30th. The Data Coalition is widely considered the premier voice on data policy in the US; the group advocates for responsible policies to make sure government data is high quality, accessible and usable.

This article was originally posted on ILTA.

On August 26th, the SEC modernized its disclosure rules under Regulation S-K. Arguably the most dramatic change is that companies are now required to disclose information about their environmental practices and their human capital resources to the extent that these are material to a company’s business as a whole. 

This article was originally posted on Equilar. 

The recent 2020 proxy season occurred during the expanding coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the full outcomes and impacts of which aren’t fully known as of this writing.

With the end of LIBOR fast approaching, many organizations are struggling to find an efficient way to manage the transition. eBrevia hosted a roundtable discussion with senior leaders from PwC and Norton Rose Fulbright to discuss key insights learned from managing the LIBOR transition to date and strategies to complete LIBOR remediation on time.

Speakers: Davide Barzilai, Partner, Norton Rose Fulbright & Sally Neal, Retired Partner, PwC

Moderator: Adam Nguyen, Co-Founder and Senior Vice President, eBrevia, a DFIN Company

DFIN Input to Rule 498A Could Open the Door to Apps Industry-wide

When rule 30e-3 (also known as the E-Delivery Rule) came into effect, DFIN applauded the cautious step forward but encouraged the SEC to accelerate the wide adoption of modern technology (Read more at Looking Beyond the SEC’s New E-Delivery Rule).

Recently, a surge in AI-powered virtual data rooms (VDRs) have proved helpful in optimizing due diligence tasks like redaction. Data redaction tools have emerged to remove key terms quickly and relatively easily, saving sellers time and energy. Where these tools fall short, however, is in their ability to eliminate much of the manual effort still needed to structure and guide how information is redacted.

Since the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) took effect in May 2018, companies around the globe have been struggling to understand and meet the standards of this regulation, while additional legislation around the world continues to evolve and new policies are passed into law.