Back in February, it seemed like repeal of the CEO pay ratio disclosure was only a matter of time and that when it goes, it might take a lot of the rest of Dodd-Frank with it (see “More Challenges to Dodd-Frank,” February 9). But now the GOP’s push for a repeal seems to be losing steam.
Piwowar’s Request for Comments
As I noted on February 9, SEC Chairman Piwowar has requested comments from companies that have encountered unexpected challenges in implementing the CEO pay ratio. Comments are posted to the SEC’s website as they are received: so far, the SEC has received over 60 individual comment letters and a form letter (of which there have been over 3,000 submissions). The overwhelming majority of comments, including the over 3,000 form letters, are opposed to a further delay in the implementation of the rule. Given the veritable wealth of information on executive pay that is included in the proxy, it is surprising to me that anyone feels they need to know the ratio of CEO to median employee pay to figure out that CEOs are overpaid but apparently a lot of people really do want to know this. Go figure.
If you have encountered challenges (expected or unexpected) in preparing for the disclosure, now is a good time to tell the SEC about them. Comments are due by March 23 but, in my experience, most governmental agencies will still consider comments received after the deadline. If you are interested in reading about the challenges other companies have encountered, check out the letters from Borg WarnerFlushing Financial, Stein Mart, and Finish Line.
Not a Priority?
Trump’s executive order requiring review of all “existing laws, treaties, regulations, guidance, reporting and recordkeeping requirements, and other Government policies” seemed to target Dodd-Frank along with other legislation (see “Dodd-Frank Under Scrutiny“). But, as reported in an article on Bloomberg (“Dismantling Dodd-Frank May Have to Wait“), repeal of Dodd-Frank was notably absent from Trump’s priority-setting speech to Congress on February 28.
Financial Choice Act a Long Shot
The Bloomberg article also noted that there is significant opposition to the Financial Choice Act. This act would repeal or weaken much of Dodd-Frank, but one analyst quoted in the article gives it only a 10-20% chance of passing.
It’s Not Over Until the Secretary of the Treasury Sings
The Executive Order calling for a review of all existing laws, regulations, etc. also requires the Secretary of Treasury and the Financial Stability Oversight Council to report their findings to the Administration by early June. Until then, there’s still a chance the rule may be delayed or repealed.
As I mentioned in my blog on Tuesday, we are starting to see some movement towards repeal or revision of at least parts of the Dodd-Frank Act. The Administration’s executive order isn’t the only action that has been taken; here are a couple of other developments:
CEO Pay Ratio—The SEC Weighs In
On Monday, February 6, Acting SEC Chair Michael Piwowar issued a statement on the CEO pay ratio disclosure. Piwowar requests comments on “unexpected challenges that issuers have experienced as they prepare for compliance with the rule and whether relief is needed,” and encourages detailed comments to be submitted within 45 days. Piwowar also notes that he has directed the SEC staff to “reconsider the implementation of the rule based on any comments submitted and to determine as promptly as possible whether additional guidance or relief may be appropriate.”
While that’s pretty vague, is does indicate that, in addition to the Secretary of the Treasury and the Financial Stability Oversight Council, the SEC is also looking at the CEO pay ratio rule. Even so, it’s hard to say what this means. As we all know, and as an article in the Wall Street Journal notes (“GOP-Led SEC Considers Easing Pay-Gap Disclosure Rule of Dodd-Frank“), it is difficult for the SEC to move quickly on matters like this:
Republicans on the SEC could be stymied by the commission’s own procedures on the pay-ratio rule because undoing a regulation is handled by an often lengthy process that is similar to creating one. It also is difficult for the SEC to delay it outright, because of the commission’s depleted ranks. There are just two sitting commissioners—Mr. Piwowar and Kara Stein, a Democrat—meaning the SEC is politically deadlocked on most matters. Ms. Stein on Monday signaled opposition to efforts to ease the pay rule. “It’s problematic for a chair to create uncertainty about which laws will be enforced,” she said.
And Then There’s Congress
An article in Bloomberg/BNA reports that the Financial Choice Act is likely to be reintroduced into Congress this year (“Dodd-Frank Rollback Bill Expected in February, Duffy Says“). Originally introduced last year, this bill would repeal or restrict major parts of the Dodd-Frank Act, including reducing the frequency of Say-on-Pay votes, limiting application of the clawback provisions, and repealing the CEO pay ratio and hedging disclosures. Jenn Namazi blogged on the Act last year (see “Post Election: Things to Watch – Part I” and “Part 2“).
The Financial Choice Act is bigger than Dodd-Frank. The bill would also require a joint resolution of Congress before any “major” rulemaking by the SEC and a number of other agencies could go into effect. Mark Borges notes in his blog on CompensationStandards.com (“Acting SEC Chair Weighs in on CEO Pay Ratio Rule“) that the bill is expected to require the major proxy advisory firms to register with the SEC and, among other things, disclose potential conflicts of interest.
Poll: What Are You Doing?
It’s hard to know what to do in response to all this. Preparing for the CEO pay ratio disclosure requires a lot of time and resources, which most on the corporate side would view as wasted if the disclosure is eliminated. But if the disclosure isn’t eliminated, stalling preparations now could result in an implementation time crunch.
In his blog on CompensationStandards.com (“As Predicted—Hitting the Pause Button on the CEO Pay Ratio Rule“), Mike Melbinger says: “Postponement and revision of the rule seems likely. Now might be a good time to stop spending time and money on this calculation.” Take our poll to tell us what your company is doing (click here if the poll doesn’t display below).
Since last Friday, there’s been a lot of talk from regulators relating to Dodd-Frank. There’s been no definitive action yet on the law, but we’re officially on notice that things are likely to change in the future. Here’s a quick run-down of what happened.
Review of Dodd-Frank
Last Friday, February 3, the Administration issued an executive order that purportedly calls for a review of the Dodd-Frank Act, albeit without mentioning Dodd-Frank by name. The order establishes the following “Core Principles”:
(a) empower Americans to make independent financial decisions and informed choices in the marketplace, save for retirement, and build individual wealth;
(b) prevent taxpayer-funded bailouts;
(c) foster economic growth and vibrant financial markets through more rigorous regulatory impact analysis that addresses systemic risk and market failures, such as moral hazard and information asymmetry;
(d) enable American companies to be competitive with foreign firms in domestic and foreign markets;
(e) advance American interests in international financial regulatory negotiations and meetings;
(g) restore public accountability within Federal financial regulatory agencies and rationalize the Federal financial regulatory framework.
The order then gives the Secretary of the Treasury and the Financial Stability Oversight Council 120 days to report on the extent to which “existing laws, treaties, regulations, guidance, reporting and recordkeeping requirements, and other Government policies” adhere to these principles and to identify any of said laws, treaties, et. al., that inhibit regulation in a manner consistent with the Core Principles.
That sounds bigger than Dodd-Frank and perhaps it is. According to an article by Bloomberg (“Trump to Order Dodd-Frank Review, Halt Obama Fiduciary Rule,” the order is intended to target the Fiduciary Rule (which requires advisors on retirement accounts to act in the best interest of the clients), as well as Dodd-Frank.
It’s all very general in nature, but within the next four months (presumably sometime around the end of May) the Treasury Department will be delivering its report and (again presumably) it will address whether (and to what extent) the Dodd-Frank Act promotes or does not promote the Core Principles. I expect that this report will cover the various executive compensation-related provisions of the Act, including the CEO pay ratio disclosure requirement. While it’s still too early to know what this all means – or how it will play out, the Order clearly signals the start of the long-promised re-working of the law. This will likely include the repeal of some provisions, the modification and amendment of others, and, possibly, the survival of some provisions intact.
It is common for boards and compensation committees to have discretion over clawback provisions, either over determining whether the clawback provision has been triggered or, once triggered, whether it should be enforced. While this discretionary authority is useful from a design and implementation standpoint, it can sometimes be problematic from an accounting perspective.
Background
Under ASC 718, expense associated with an equity award is determined on the grant date, which cannot occur before an employee and employer reach a mutual understanding of the key terms and conditions of the award. Where a key term is subject to discretion, a mutual understanding of the key terms and conditions of the award may not exist until the point at which this discretion can no longer be exercised.
In the case of clawback provisions, if the circumstances under which the board/compensation committee might exercise their discretion are not clear, this could lead to the conclusion that the service or performance necessary to earn the award is not fully defined. This, in turn, prohibits a mutual understanding of the terms and conditions of the award and delays the grant date. This delay would most likely result in liability treatment of the award.
Recent Comments from SEC Accounting Fellow
Sean May, a professional accounting fellow in the SEC’s Office of the Chief Accountant, discussed this concern in a speech at the 2016 AICPA Conference on Current SEC and PCAOB Developments, held in Washington, DC. May distinguished objectively applied clawback policies from policies that “may allow those with the authority over compensation arrangements to apply discretion.” In addition, he made the following comments:
If an award includes a key term or condition that is subject to discretion, which may include some types of clawback provisions, then a registrant should carefully consider whether a mutual understanding has been reached and a grant date has been established. When making that determination, a registrant should also assess the past practices exercised by those with authority over compensation arrangements and how those practices may have evolved over time. To that end, registrants should consider whether they have the appropriate internal control over financial reporting to monitor those practices in order to support the judgment needed to determine whether a grant date has been established.
Clawbacks and Discretion are Common
68% of respondents to the NASPP’s 2016 Domestic Stock Plan Design Survey (co-sponsored by Deloitte Consulting) indicate that their equity awards are subject to clawback provisions. 83% of those respondents, indicate that the board or compensation committee has some level of discretion over enforcement of the provisions.
If you are among those 83%, it might be a good idea to review the comments May made at the AICPA conference with your accounting advisers to make sure your equity awards receive the accounting treatment you expect.
The question of the role of compensation in encouraging risk-taking and cheating on the part of executives is an ongoing debate (for example, see “CEOs with Stock Options Are More Likely to Break Laws,” by Dylan Minor, Harvard Business Review, May 26, 2106). But a couple of recent studies that I heard about on a podcast make me wonder if it isn’t the amount or type of compensation that is the problem but more so the disclosure of it.
The Studies
I make dinner every night and doing so invariably involves endless chopping of vegetables. This gives me a LOT of time to listen to podcasts. One podcast I listen to regularly is NPR’s Hidden Brain, which discusses patterns in human behavior. A recent episode (“The Cheater’s High and Other Reasons We Cheat“) discussed social science research on cheating, specifically the social contexts in which people cheat.
The podcast discussed one study (“Cheating More for Less: Upward Social Comparisons Motivate the Poorly Compensated to Cheat” by Leslie John of Harvard Business School, George Loewenstein of Carnegie Mellon University, and Scott Rick of the University of Michigan) that found that people are more likely to cheat when they are aware that others are doing better than them. The subjects of the study were compensated at varying rates for performing a self-reported trivia task. The subjects were more likely to cheat when they knew that others in the experiment were earning more than them. The more easily they had access to the information about how others were compensated, the more likely they were to cheat. According to the authors of the study:
Our results suggest that low pay-rates are, in and of themselves, unlikely to promote dishonesty. Instead, it is the salience of upward social comparisons that encourages the poorly compensated to cheat.
A second study (“Winning a Competition Predicts Dishonest Behavior” by Amos Schurr of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Ilana Ritov of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem) found that people who won a competition were more likely to cheat on subsequent unrelated tasks. The propensity to cheat was tied directly to winning (i.e., performing better than their peers), not succeeding at personal goals or in games of chance.
Executive Compensation Disclosures and Cheating
When I listened to the podcast, I immediately thought of the executive compensation disclosures in the proxy statement. The disclosures provide an easy way for executives to compare their pay to their peers’. Not only is the information readily available on the SEC website, but it is fodder for any number of published studies on executive compensation. For proof, just look at the NASPP’s Surveys & Studies Portal. I count at least four or five such studies that are published annually, one of which is published in the Wall Street Journal. And that’s just among the studies that I have permission to post on the website. I’m sure there are more that I’m not aware of. If you are among the top five highest executives, I’m pretty sure you have an idea of how your compensation compares to your peers’.
On top of that, in recent years executive pay has shifted more and more towards performance-based compensation, which enables executives to increase the amount they are paid by improving company performance. We’ve also seen a significant shift toward measuring performance based on relative TSR—that is, how well a company performs as compared to its peers. Companies that rank higher against their peers “win” and those executives are paid more. Given the results of the two studies described above, this seems like a recipe for executives to cheat.
As we reported in the Nov-Dec 2015 NASPP Advisor, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced in October that he is giving 6.8 million shares of common stock that he owns back to Twitter, to be used in Twitter’s stock plan. I started looking into this a little further and found some interesting details.
Not So Fast
Dorsey donated shares he already owned to the plan, unlike other CEOs who have given back outstanding options or awards. Because of this, the shares can’t simply be added to the stock plan. For most companies, the only way to add shares reacquired from investors into a stock plan is to submit the allocation to a shareholder vote.
Why Not Contribute Awards?
It would have been less complicated for Dorsey to have agreed to the cancellation of outstanding options or awards, as other CEOs have done (e.g., see our coverage of LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner’s decision to forgo his stock grant in the Mar-Apr 2016 Advisor). These shares can be added back to the plan without shareholder approval. But Dorsey doesn’t have a lot of outstanding awards to give up; he has voluntarily worked without compensation since becoming CEO and, thus, wasn’t granted any awards in 2015. He only has 2,000,000 outstanding stock options.
Enter the Proxy Advisors and Institutional Investors
Of course, submitting the plan to a shareholder vote leads to an analysis of the plan by proxy advisors and investors. It can even lead to a new Equity Plan Scorecard evaluation by ISS. A bit of news that caught my eye was that Twitter had to agree to prohibit repricing without shareholder approval under the plan to secure a favorable vote. Repricing without shareholder approval is a deal-breaker under the EPSC.
It’s Complicated
My first thought on reading this was “no good deed goes unpunished.” But, on second thought, I’m not sure that’s the case here. I’m not even sure this is a good deed. Rather than submit the proposal as a allocation of shares to their existing plan, Twitter adopted an entirely new plan for just the 6.8 million shares. The amendment to prohibit repricing only applies to this new plan; as far as I can tell, repricing is still permitted without shareholder approval under Twitter’s existing plans (under which any currently underwater options would likely have been granted).
Where’s the Urgency?
I was surprised to note that Twitter had over 110 million shares available in its 2013 plan as of December 31 and that the plan includes an evergreen provision, under which close to 35 million shares were added to the plan this year. It looks like Twitter granted less than 25 million shares last year, so it seems hard to believe that they are going to need those 6.8 million shares anytime soon.
Which makes me wonder why Dorsey donated the shares. Was it just a publicity stunt? A way to increase employee morale? (And, if so, did it work? Better than donating the 2,000,000 outstanding options would have worked?)
If you’re feeling curious about how equity plan proposals are performing with shareholder votes, today’s blog has answers. Semler Brossy recently released their 2016 report on Trends in Equity Plan Proposals. Keep reading for some of the highlights.
Upward Trend in Failed Say-on-Pay Votes?
The number of companies each proxy cycle that have failed to obtain say-on-pay (“SOP”) approval from shareholders has remained fairly constant since SOP became mandatory 2011. This time last year, only two of the Russell 3,000 companies had failed their SOP vote. This year, that number has increased to five companies so far. Does this signify an uptick in SOP failures? It appears so, because the number of companies with failed votes so far in 2016 amounts to 3.5%, marking the first time more than 3% of Russell 3000 companies have failed at this time in the cycle to obtain an affirmative vote. Whether this is an anomaly year, or an indicator of a trend, time will tell.
Correlation Between Affirmative Say-on-Pay and Stock Plan Proposal Approvals
One correlation that appears to be rising is that companies who receive a pass Say-on-Pay vote also receive strong support for their equity plan proposals. Since SOP was adopted, the percentage of equity plan proposals that receive affirmative support relative to passing SOP votes has steadily increased (from 83% in 2011 to 90% in 2015). According to the Semler Brossy report,
Similarly, average vote support for equity plans at companies that receive an ISS ‘For’ recommendation has increased over time; this may suggest that ISS voting policies have become well-aligned with shareholder preferences
Companies that fail Say on Pay tend to have significantly lower support for their equity plan proposals, indicating that shareholders are assessing both proposals under similar lenses
A couple of final data points that seem to bring this all full circle are that ISS has recommended that shareholders vote “Against” Say-on-Pay at 10% of the companies it’s assessed so far in 2016, and, on top of that, shareholder support was 32% lower at companies with an ISS “Against” vote. This seems to suggest that companies looking for shareholder support in other areas, such as equity plan proposals, are more likely to gain shareholder support when ISS has recommended an affirmative Say-on-Pay vote. At minimum, there is an intertwining of all these factors and how they drive shareholder support.
For more interesting Say-on-Pay and equity plan proposal trends, view the full Semler Brossy report.
We’ve seen quite a bit of evolution in the mix of equity incentive compensation vehicles and terms over the last decade. The use of stock awards has surpassed that of stock options. Performance based compensation continues on its upward rise towards total prevalence. Another change that has slowly gained traction in the wake of Dodd-Frank, Say-on-Pay, and other measures is what I’m terming a slow death for the time based vesting of options and awards, or, as some call it, “pay for pulse.”
In a recent Equilar blog titled “Companies Just Say No to “Pay for Pulse,” the author cites a recent study of Equilar 100 companies that found 70% of the executive pay mix was “at risk.” In another report (Equilar’s 2015 Equity Trends Report), “nearly 70% of S&P 1500 companies used performance awards in 2014, up from about 50% in 2010.” This is consistent with the trends that we’ve observed as well.
Equilar also suggested that a closer look at LTIPs revealed that performance awards (in the form of units, stock, and options) comprised almost 80% of individual incentive plans. Equity awards that vest over time—or time-based awards—made up the remainder. Additionally, “slightly more than 10% of the Fortune 500—or 51 companies—used performance equity exclusively. The list varied by industry, but notably included multiple energy, retail and media companies.”
We really didn’t need more evidence to know that performance awards appear to have found a long term home in the equity compensation mix. What remains not entirely clear at this point is the fate of time based vesting for options and awards. There is an argument that while performance based incentives work well for executives – those with the most control over corporate decisions and strategy – there may still be benefit to offering time based vesting awards to those farther down in the ranks of the organization where some job functions may be more task oriented and less strategic in nature.
Time will tell whether time-based vesting is on its way out the door, or will stand the test of time (no pun intended) and remain a smaller, but still present, component of company stock plans. Is there still a home for “pay for pulse” in the equity compensation vesting mix?
We have a great webcast planned on the very relevant topic of performance awards and their evolution. On April 7th, Performance Awards: An Ever Changing Landscape will include Jillian Forusz from Adobe Systems Inc., Belen Gomez from Equilar, Dan Kapinos from Aon Hewitt and Robert Purser from E*TRADE. We’ve also got a podcast interview with Belen Gomez from Equilar going up on our website on Monday, March 28th. If you subscribe to the podcast now, you’ll get an email notification when Belen’s interview is up.
This week the SEC announced a settled enforcement action against the former CFO of Marrone Bio Innovations, Inc. At issue were bonuses the former CFO received within 12 months of various financial filings containing results that the company was later required to restate. Using Section 304 of the Sarbanes-Oxlely Act of 2002 (SOX 304), the SEC pursued the clawback of $11,789 in bonuses from the former CFO.
As we await final clawback rules from the SEC (which originate from Dodd-Frank and would apply to national securities exchanges), it’s important to remember that the SEC already has the present ability to enforce clawbacks in certain situations under SOX 304. The SOX provisions apply only to CEOs and CFOs and the courts have determined that only the SEC has the power to enforce clawbacks under SOX. One common misunderstanding about SOX 304 centers on “misconduct.” A Latham & Watkins memo once described SOX 304 as follows: “The statute states that, in the event an issuer is required to prepare an accounting restatement caused by “misconduct,” the CEO and the CFO “shall” reimburse the company for any bonus or other incentive-based or equity-based compensation, and any profits from the sale of the issuer’s securities, received during the year following the issuance of the misstated financial statements.” The memo later explained that the misconduct does not necessarily need to be on the part of the CEO or CFO who is subject to the clawback, a fact sometimes overlooked in our view of the type of misconduct that would trigger a clawback.
The recent SEC enforcement in the case of the former MBI CFO is a prime example that the SEC appears to have determined the misconduct by someone or something other than the person subject to the clawback (the CFO) as a legitimate grounds to demand the repayment of the CFO’s compensation. In this case, the former CFO had to return $11,789 in bonuses, but the SEC did not allege misconduct on his part. They did, however, allege that by not voluntarily returning his incentive compensation once the restatements occurred, he had violated SOX 304. It’s important to understand that in order for the circumstances for a clawback to be ripe, misconduct specifically by the CEO or CFO does not need to be present. Misconduct by someone or something else leading to a restatement can be enough to require the clawback of incentive compensation under SOX 304.
It’s important for companies to evaluate the circumstances regarding any restatement to ensure that appropriate measures have been taken to clawback the appropriate compensation from the CEO and CFO under SOX 304.
The SEC’s proposed clawback rulemaking resulting from Dodd-Frank will require national securities exchanges to adopt standards that, among other things, expand the scope of clawbacks – making them applicable to more individuals and for a longer period of time. The types of compensation subject to the clawback will be more limited under the proposed rules. These rules will not replace SOX 304; the SEC can still continue to rely on SOX 304 as means to enforce clawbacks. For full details on the proposed rules, visit the NASPP Alert on this topic.
A recent IRS Chief Counsel Memorandum indicates that smaller reporting companies must treat their CFO as a covered employee under Section 162(m) if he/she is one of the top two highest paid executives other than the CEO.
Wait a Minute! The CFO Isn’t Subject to 162(m)?
Yep, that’s right. For larger reporting companies, it may seem crazy, but the CFO isn’t ever a covered employee under Section 162(m). This is because the definition of a named executive officer under Item 402 of Reg S-K for purposes of the executive compensation disclosures in the proxy has evolved and the definition of a covered employee under Section 162(m) hasn’t kept pace.
Section 162(m) applies to the following executives:
The CEO
The top four highest paid executives other than the CEO, as determined for proxy disclosure purposes.
Back when 162(m) was adopted, this was the same group of people that were considered NEOs for purposes of the proxy disclosures. But in 2006, the SEC changed Item 402 to carve out a separate requirement for CFOs. So now, the NEOs in the proxy are:
Anyone serving as CEO during the year
Anyone serving as CFO during the year
The top three highest paid executives other than the CEO and the CFO.
Up to two additional executives that would have been in the top three except that they terminated before the end of the year.
Unfortunately, only Congress can change the statutory language under Section 162(m), so the IRS can’t modify the definition of a covered employee to match the SEC’s new definition of an NEO. (When Congress drafted Section 162(m), they probably should have just said that it applies to all NEOs as determined under Item 402 of Reg S-K.)
All the IRS can do is interpret the requirement under 162(m) in light of the SEC’s definition. Their interpretation is that the SEC’s change exempts CFOs from Section 162(m) (see the NASPP alert “IRS Issues Guidance on ‘Covered Employees’ Under Section 162(m),” June 9, 2007). (If you are wondering, former employees are also not subject to Section 162(m); this is another evolution in the SEC definition that hasn’t been implemented in the tax code.)
What Gives With Smaller Reporting Companies?
Smaller reporting companies are subject to abbreviated reporting requirements, including fewer NEOs for proxy reporting purposes. Thus, the SEC’s new definition in 2006 never applied to smaller reporting companies. Instead, NEOs in smaller reporting companies are defined as:
The CEO
The top two highest paid executives other than the CEO.
Per Chief Counsel Memorandum 201543003, because the CFO isn’t separately required to be included in the proxy disclosures for smaller reporting companies, he/she is still a covered employee for Section 162(m) if he/she is one of the top two highest paid executives other than the CEO.