Gary Gensler, His Slide Rule Are Coming For Your Bonuses

Forty-nine. That’s the number of new rules or rule changes Gary Gensler has proposed in his six months at the helm of the Securities and Exchange Commission. It seems like a lot to do, at least to those charged with making them happen, and definitely to those on the receiving end. Quite enough, in fact, especially given all the other things that Wall Street’s top cop has on his plate.

But, as we’ve discussed, Gary Gensler’s appetite for regulating knows no bounds. There are plenty more where the aforementioned 49 came from. Nor is Gensler limited by his own imagination: As he’s shown in the past, he’s quite eager to finish the work his predecessors just couldn’t quite get around to doing over the last 11 years.

Currently, when the SEC finds errors on a company’s statements, corporate boards decide whether to punish the company’s top brass by reclaiming some of their compensation. The 2010 Dodd-Frank Act charged the SEC with drafting new rules that would strip a board’s jurisdiction in such cases in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis…. The SEC first published its proposed changes in 2015, a collection of penalties that would force companies to penalize accounting errors by “clawing back” pay from a broader collection of executives…. Now, after another multiyear delay, the SEC is picking up where it left off and is seeking public input on those rules for 30 days. The regulator could move forward with the proposed changes following the comment period, but it did not provide a timeline for finishing the long-delayed rules.

SEC renews effort to claw back Wall Street executive bonuses when firms report incorrect info [CNBC]

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