On July 26, 2023, the #sec adopted final rules requiring disclosure of material #cybersecurity incidents on Form 8-K and periodic disclosure of a registrant’s cybersecurity #riskmanagement, strategy, and #governance in #annualreports.
The paper discusses the proposed #climatechange #disclosure rules by the #sec, which would mandate companies to provide detailed disclosures on the impact of climate change on their financial performance and policies. The authors conducted a study using hand-collected data from 99 annual reports of 34 S&P 500 companies from 2019 to 2021, finding that 91% of the #annualreports included some disclosures on climate-related risks. The study found a positive relationship between climate-related disclosures and firms’ financial performance.
"The proposed climate disclosure rule is unnecessary, unjustified, and an expensive exercise in environmental bureaucracy with little to no practical benefit for U.S. investors. The billions of dollars in additional compliance costs would fall on the shareholders, employees, and customers of U.S. public companies, while the benefits would flow to a handful of large asset management, consulting, and accounting firms."
"… auditors increase audit fees, provide higher audit quality, and are more likely to resign from suspected clients, suggesting that auditors proactively manage risk in response to regulatory scrutiny."