Over on TheCorporateCounsel.net, Dave Lynn just blogged about where things (might) stand with the recent wave of comment letters SEC Division of Corporation Finance (CorpFin) staff sent to issuers about their climate disclosures. He has written on the topic a few times – this one is a good summary. According to Dave,
To date, we have not seen any correspondence from completed climate change reviews posted on EDGAR (other than situations where the comments have been raised on registration statements). This suggests that the reviews are ongoing, and anecdotally it seems that issuers have been receiving multiple rounds of comments from the Staff concerning their climate change disclosure (or lack thereof). From our understanding, the comments continue to focus on the determination as to materiality of the climate change information, and in some cases issuers are getting more comments in the subsequent rounds than they did in the first round. Given this trajectory, it does not seem likely that the comment process will wrap up any time soon, which makes things difficult for the subject issuers who are now in the process of preparing their Form 10-Ks.
For issuers who are not on the receiving end of the Staff’s comments, the Sample Letter remains a good resource for considering the applicability of the 2010 guidance to the issuer’s disclosure for the upcoming reporting season.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Staff are taking this opportunity to gather additional information for, and possibly vet some ideas about, their climate disclosure proposal that – last we heard – were expected to be published in the coming weeks.
