SEC Investor Advocate Rick Fleming Discusses Corporate Disclosure

SEC Investor Advocate Rick Fleming discussed steps the SEC should take to ensure that investors receive meaningful disclosures.

According to Mr. Fleming, if the SEC wants issuers to provide effective disclosures to the modern-day investor, the data needs to be both "layered and structured." He explained that the information should be split into manageable pieces with appealing graphics, with tabs and hyperlinks to assist investors to quickly find the information most useful to them. Additionally, he stated that structured data could "assist the analyst or intermediary who wants to search data dynamically and compare multiple companies by slicing and dicing the data."

According to Mr. Fleming, the SEC has been "painfully slow to adapt to changing technologies that will benefit investors." He also explained he is "troubled" by Congressional action that may thwart SEC progress, such as the recent House passing of H.R. 37, which would create an exemption from the eXtensible Business Reporting Language filing requirements for emerging growth companies and other small companies. If passed by the Senate and signed into law, Mr. Fleming stated he believes the bill would "seriously impede the ability of the SEC to bring disclosure into the 21st Century."

See: Mr. Fleming's Speech.