On July 13, the Securities and Exchange Commission proposed rule amendments to update and simplify certain disclosure requirements that may have become “redundant, duplicative, overlapping, outdated or superseded.” The proposal comes as a result of the SEC staff’s ongoing work to improve disclosure for both investors and companies and aims to address disclosure inefficiencies as follows:
- Duplicative Requirements.
- Deletion of requirements that require substantially the same disclosures as: (1) US generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP); (2) International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS); and (3) other SEC disclosure requirements.
- Overlapping Requirements.
- Deletion or integration of requirements that (1) convey reasonably similar information to, (2) are encompassed by disclosures that result from compliance with, or (3) require disclosure incremental to overlapping requirements of, GAAP, IFRS or other SEC disclosure requirements.
- Outdated Requirements.
- Deletion or amendment of requirements that have become obsolete over time or due to regulatory, business or technological changes.
- Superseded Requirements.
- Deletion or amendment of requirements inconsistent with recent legislation or more recently updated SEC or GAAP requirements.
The SEC’s press release, which contains a fact sheet regarding the proposing release, can be found here. These proposed amendments will be addressed in greater detail in a future post.