A Review of Comments to the SEC’s Disclosure Effectiveness Concept Release

The FACT Coalition joined eight other groups—the AFL-CIO; Americans for Financial Reform; the Center for American Progress; Ceres; the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable; Patriotic Millionaires; Public Citizen; and US SIF: The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment—in releasing a report analyzing the more than 26,000 comments received in response to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s April 2016 concept release on “Business and Financial Disclosure Required by Regulation S-K”.

Titled “Towards a Sustainable Economy: A Review of Comments to the SEC’s Disclosure Effectiveness Concept Release,” report finds that commenters expressed clear support for expanded and enhanced disclosures, particularly in the areas of taxes, the environment and climate change, political spending, human capital and workforce issues, human rights, and financial stability risks. Commenters identifying themselves as institutional investment managers, public pension funds or trustees, private pension funds and trustees, religious investors, professional investment advisers, research analysts, public interest advocates, individual members of the public, academics, individual policy experts, broad-based investor organizations, investor organizations dedicated to improving disclosures, standards-setting organizations, accountants, and members of Congress generally supported expanded and enhanced disclosures.