regulatory landscape is shifting under our feet.” Peirce noted that her comments reflect her per-
sonal views and not the official views of the SEC. Moten noted a reticence among many public companies to approach the SEC with questions, but Peirce encouraged IROs to proactively talk with the SEC. “We need to hear from companies that we regulate,” she said. “We may not always agree, but that is ok—I still need to hear from people and we as an agency need to hear from people. If we’re not hearing from you, we’ll be sitting in our ivory tower making rules that are not relevant or don’t work.” Regarding 13F modernization, Peirce called it “an
interesting concept” and noted the broad sweep of the regulation, which extends to organizations such as churches and other entities that may not want to reveal details of their investment portfolios. “I don’t have a definitive view—I am eager to hear from all of you,” she said. Te SEC climate change reporting proposal has
generated enormous controversy and is currently in litigation that will influence its path forward. “Tere is a lot of pressure in favor of including Scope 3 emis- sions and against including Scope 3,” she said. “I felt pretty strongly that we were in general departing from a materiality-based disclosure regime in adopting these climate rules. Opening the door to requiring companies to make disclosures that are not clearly financially material is problematic.” Peirce added that she believes current SEC regu- lations are adequate and that state regulations
18 S UMMER 2 0 24 ■ IR UPDAT E
regarding climate change reporting such as those in California open the door to a challenging situation where companies must try to comply with multiple, sometimes conflicting, regulations. As for a timeline on the SEC climate change rule,
she said that depends on how the litigation proceeds. She encouraged IROs to talk to the SEC about what they believe an appropriate timeline would be. “When new rules come out, we understand that it takes people time to figure out how they apply and their unique facts and circumstances. I don’t think it makes sense to come out with an enforcement program to tell people how to implement a rule. We really need to work with companies to implement a rule and then enforcement comes when people have had some experience with the rule. Tat’s how I think it should be done, but I am one commissioner and I don’t represent the whole SEC.” She added that providing guidance about the rule early will help companies comply in the way the SEC intends. Moten mentioned the issue of meme stocks,
to which Peirce replied, “We are always looking out for issues around market manipulation, but it depends a lot on the facts and circumstances. We have regulations around manipulation. Some of the new technologies that people use to communicate with each other sometimes make it more difficult to apply those rules, but I don’t know that we neces- sarily need to update the rules—I think they have worked fairly well.”
Five of the seven 2024 NIRI Fellows were recognized onstage with NIRI leaders. Pictured left to right are Fellow Darin Arita, CFA, IRC; Fellow Karla Kimrey, IRC; NIRI Immediate Past Chair Katie Royce, CFA; NIRI Chair John Moten, IRC; NIRI President CEO Matthew Brusch, CAE; Fellow Wendy Wilson; Fellow Victoria Hyde-Dunn; and Fellow Richard Yerganian. New Fellows Leslie Kratcosti, IRC and Victoria Sivrais are not pictured.
niri.org/ irupdate
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