There’s an old country fable that goes: When you sit down to bacon and eggs at breakfast, the chicken is involved, but the pig is committed. Many dedicated customers of retail chain Tractor Supply Co. and Deere & Co., manufacturer of John Deere lawnmowers, have probably heard that old saw before. The two companies recently had chicken-or-pig moments of their own regarding their corporate sustainability programs. Both came out looking more like poultry than pork. Tractor Supply went first. Last month, the retail chain announced it is cutting back on “nonbusiness activities,” which entails d ..read more

The quest for uniformity between the major U.S. stock exchanges when it comes to mergers of special purpose acquisition companies took an interesting turn this week. First, a primer on recent events for the uninitiated. SPACs are shell companies. Their sponsors essentially bypass the traditional process of holding an initial public offering by listing SPACs on stock exchanges with the goal of raising funds to acquire private companies. Once completed, these “de-SPAC” mergers allow the private companies to go public without the expenses and oversight required for standard IPOs. The SPAC fad wit ..read more

The precipitous drop in demand for electric vehicles continues to inflict pain on the automotive sector in the form of bankruptcies, workforce reductions, sagging profits, and abandoned factory and development projects. Some EV manufacturers and industry analysts are expressing hope that the market’s struggles are simply a short-term setback and that a turnaround could occur over the next few years. For now, though, consumers remain wary of high sticker prices and the challenges of keeping the vehicles charged. EV manufacturer Fisker Group Inc. announced in June that it had filed for Chapter 1 ..read more

Have you heard about the big Supreme Court decision that came down a couple weeks ago? No, not the one about Presidential immunity. We’re talking about the one with the power to upend the regulatory system and the balance of power between the executive and judicial branches of the federal government. For roughly 40 years, administrative law in the United States has adhered to the Chevron doctrine, so named for the Supreme Court’s ruling in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. in 1984. That decision established that courts should defer to the interpretations of federa ..read more

R.R. Donnelly & Sons Co. doesn’t seem like the type of company that’s likely to make waves. Once the world’s largest commercial printer, Chicago-based RRD boasts that it has “the industry’s most trusted portfolio of marketing, packaging, print and supply chain solutions.” But the company, which was acquired by Chatham Asset Management and taken private in 2022, may now become the poster child for a new approach to securities law enforcement. Last month, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced a settlement with RRD over charges of disclosure and internal control failures stemming f ..read more

Having completed “first tech monopoly trial of the internet era” against Google for its search advertising businesses, the federal government is now exploring potential antitrust issues in artificial intelligence. According to Jonathan Kanter, the assistant attorney general in charge of the Department of Justice Antitrust Division, emerging issues in AI deserve immediate attention. In an interview with the Financial Times, Kanter said his team is digging into “monopoly choke points and the competitive landscape” in AI. The fear is that a few well-resourced companies have already gobbled up mos ..read more

This month brought the return of HBO’s House of the Dragon, a prequel spinoff of the network’s hit series Game of Thrones, which shares some striking similarities with the currency war currently raging in the real world. The start of the show’s second season finds author George R.R. Martin’s fictional kingdom of Westeros preparing for a bloody civil war precipitated by a squabble among the Targaryens, the realm’s ruling clan. The currency war may not be as visceral as pitting dragon-riding family members against each other, but it’s inflicting collateral damage, nonetheless. Currency wars refe ..read more

There is no indication of the typical “summer slowdown” at the Public Company Accounting and Oversight Board or the Financial Accounting Standards Board. In fact, the PCAOB and FASB have been quite active in June, approving a slew of rule changes. Here is a round-up of their recent activity. PCAOB Perhaps the biggest story in the audit world was the PCAOB’s 5-0 vote on June 12 to expand liability for individuals who contribute to accounting firms’ violations of audit standards. Essentially the board changed the threshold for liability from recklessness to negligence. This puts the standard in ..read more

Soon after the Securities and Exchange Commission announced the final version of new rules to protect investors in special purpose acquisition companies, industry analysts and news outlets all but declared the so-called “blank-check” companies dead. “The stock market killed it first, but now the SEC has picked up a shovel and buried SPACs for good,” pronounced the Michigan Journal of Economics. Bloomberg Law offered a retrospective detailing the “boom, gloom, and doom” of SPACs. Axios explored the factors that “took down the SPAC boom.” But are they gone for good, or can SPACs be salvaged? The ..read more

Earlier this year, we offered readers three lessons from the initial wave of disclosures made under new cybersecurity rules issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2023. For example, we saw companies attempting to frame what could be interpreted as damaging revelations about online hacks of their networks into commentaries on their robust cyber defense systems. One of our observations was that companies were struggling to come to a consensus on what constitutes material information for investors when it comes to cybersecurity events. Apparently, that uncertainty is causing headache ..read more