In December 2013, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a staff report to Congress on its disclosure rules for U.S. public companies. The report, mandated by the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, offered an overview of Regulation S-K, which provides requirements for public company disclosure.

In April 13, 2016, SEC issued a concept release requesting comment on existing disclosure requirements in Regulation S-K relating to a public company’s business and financial information. These disclosure requirements serve as the foundation for the business and financial disclosure in registrants’ periodic reports. The concept release was part of a comprehensive “Disclosure Effectiveness Initiative” led by the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance to review the effectiveness of public company disclosure requirements and to consider ways to improve them for the benefit of registrants and investors.

The Division of Corporation Finance is reviewing the disclosure requirements in Regulation S-K and Regulation S-X, which provides requirements for financial statements, and is considering ways to improve the disclosure regime for the benefit of both companies and investors. The goal is to comprehensively review the requirements and make recommendations on how to update them to facilitate timely, material disclosure by companies and shareholders' access to that information. Initially, the review will focus on the business and financial disclosures required by periodic and current reports, Forms 10-K, 10-Q, and 8-K. Subsequent phases of the project will include compensation and governance information included in proxy statements.

The SEC in July 2016 voted to propose amendments to eliminate redundant, overlapping, outdated, or superseded provisions, in light of subsequent changes to Commission disclosure requirements, U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (U.S. GAAP), International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), and technology.

The SEC is also soliciting comment on certain disclosure requirements that overlap with U.S. GAAP to determine whether to retain, modify, eliminate or refer them to the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) for potential incorporation into U.S. GAAP. 

The amendments, along with the input received on the Regulation S-K concept release, are designed to further inform the SEC’s actions to enhance disclosure.

The proposal is also part of the SEC’s work to implement the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act, which, among other things, requires the SEC to eliminate provisions of Regulation S-K that are duplicative, overlapping, outdated, or unnecessary.