ESG Plan Fails to Protect Retail Investors: SEC Roundup

Welcome to SEC Roundup, a bimonthly video series by Paul Hastings partners and former Securities and Exchange Commission senior trial counsels Nick Morgan and Tom Zaccaro exploring current SEC topics with thought leaders and industry experts.

In this episode, Morgan and Zaccaro talk with George Washington Law School Professor of Corporate Governance Larry Cunningham about the SEC’s proposed rule on public company climate disclosures, which would require registrants to provide certain climate-related information in their registration statements and annual reports.

The comment period was extended to June 17.

Cunningham told the SEC in a comment letter along with other lawyers and academics that “the SEC’s recent proposal to impose extensive mandatory climate-related disclosure rules on public companies exceeds the SEC’s authority.”

Rather than provide “investor protection,” the SEC’s plan, they wrote “seems to be heavily influenced by a small but powerful cohort of environmental activists and institutional investors, mostly index funds and asset managers, promoting climate consciousness as part of their business models.”

See the video above for the discussion with Cunningham.