Executive Compensation and Related-Party Disclosure: SEC Rules and Explanation

As of July 26, 2006, the SEC completed the most sweeping overhaul of executive compensation and related party transaction disclosure in fourteen years. Executive Compensation and Related-Party Disclosure: SEC Rules and Explanations provides timely and thorough explanations, implications and full text of these reforms.

The revision puts in place a principles-based disclosure regime designed to give investors the information they need on executive compensation to make informed investment decisions and demystify any financial dealings between executives and their companies. The new rules also enhance and consolidate into one item director independence and related corporate governance disclosure requirements.

The heart of the reforms is the new Summary Compensation Table and the new Compensation Discussion and Analysis. The Summary Compensation Table is the principal vehicle for executive compensation, showing the total compensation for each of the named executive officers. For the first time, SEC rules require that all elements of executive compensation must be disclosed and that a total individual compensation number be provided for the five named executive officers. Other tables will display post-retirement compensation and options exercises.

The new Compensation Discussion and Analysis (CD&A) section is a narrative principles-based overview explaining material elements of the company’s compensation for named executive officers. It provides a company with both an obligation and an opportunity to explain its compensation policies, focusing on the most important factors. It will be filed and thus subject to Sarbanes-Oxley certification. The SEC also mandated a new compensation committee report requiring the committee to state if it has reviewed and discussed the CD&A with management and recommended to the board that the CD&A be included in the annual report.