AFREF hosted a webinar to address the urgent need for regulations on incentive-based executive compensation. The discussion, led by Natalia Renta, focused on the importance of implementing Section 956 of the Dodd-Frank Act to protect consumers and the financial system. Insights from SEC Commissioner Lizárraga and experts from labor unions and advocacy organizations highlighted the ongoing risks and impacts of misaligned incentives.
The recent congressional hearing on Wednesday, June 12th, about Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investing, featured unfounded, culture war-laden antitrust claims that witnesses and minority leaders easily debunked. During the spectacle, some members of Congress targeted witnesses from a sustainability nonprofit (Ceres), a public pension fund providing retirement security to over two million workers (CalPERS), and an impact investor (Arjuna Capital). These witnesses and others provided reasoned defenses of responsible investing, highlighting its importance for long-term financial stability, risk-management, and climate resilience.
Last month the Supreme Court delivered a crushing defeat to Wall Street’s challenge to funding of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Undeterred, Wall Street is now trying to distort the Supreme Court’s decision to conjure up a new and utterly nonsensical argument about the legality of the CFPB’s funding. The trial balloon for this argument was launched in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal by Hal Scott, a retired Harvard Law professor and longtime industry shill whose specialty is neither consumer nor constitutional issues but international finance. Scott’s notion has already been swatted down by several credentialed legal experts of various political stripes.
When consumers purchase many financial products and services they have no say over specific terms and conditions, only the choice of whether to sign or not. Yet, hidden in the fine print in virtually every contract is another grave price consumers unwittingly pay: the removal of many of their legal rights and protections. If consumers want financial services, the fine print — and the proper regulation thereof — is critically important.
Today is Exxon’s annual shareholder meeting. Regardless of the results of key votes, shareholders have made their voices heard by making it clear there will be consequences for corporations that, as the fossil fuels giant has, sue their own shareholders for daring to exercise their rights. Members of Congress should be listening too as they consider curtailing shareholder rights through H.R. 4655 and H.R. 4767 — bills marked up by the House Financial Services Committee that are expected to come to a floor vote this summer.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently finalized a rule that will close loopholes Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) issuers have taken advantage of to profit at the expense of investors. The rule becomes effective starting July 1st of this year. Here is what to expect under the new rules: Any business combination involving a