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SEC Chair Gary Gensler testified yesterday before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. Here are his prepared remarks – and here’s the 2-hour C-SPAN video.

Chair Gensler covered human capital disclosures as well as cybersecurity, climate risk, SPACs, China-based companies, Rule 10b5-1, crypto and more. As regular readers of this blog know, Chair Gensler has initiated projects on all of those topics and various remarks have suggested that he is in the “cryptocurrency is a security” camp.

Yesterday’s testimony reinforces the expectation that we’ll see proposed rulemaking for additional human capital disclosure, on top of the incremental disclosure requirements that were adopted late last year. What are companies doing so far in response to those 2020 amendments? This DFIN memo highlights recent Form 10-K disclosure from three companies about the specific topics of employee turnover & talent management. Here are some takeaways from the samples:

– ConocoPhillips included an employee demographics table. It showed the percentage of male & female employees, and the percentage of “person of color” and non-POC employees, in the categories of all employees, all leadership, top leadership and junior leadership. The company committed to publicly disclose its next Consolidated EEO-1 Report (which is now available on the company’s Diversity & Inclusion page).

– Cummins disclosed that its Board “recast our Compensation Committee as the Talent Management & Compensation Committee to reflect the Board’s commitment to overseeing and providing guidance to our leadership team in this important work.

– Signet Jewelers also added “Human Capital Management” to the title of its Compensation Committee, and described the board’s oversight role on those activities.

At our “Proxy Disclosure & Executive Compensation Conferences” – coming up virtually on October 13th – 15th – we’ll be covering new expectations for human capital management and diversity & inclusion, Form 10-K disclosures, and how to effectively share your progress. Check out the full agenda – 17 panels over 3 days. Register today so that you’re armed with these insights as you head into the 2022 proxy season! Members of our sites can attend for a discounted rate!

– Liz Dunshee