Corporate Governance

The Security and Exchange Commission recently picked up an attorney who counsels businesses on complying with federal regulations and helped companies like Dunkin’ Brands go public.

Keith F. Higgins, a partner in of Ropes & Gray’s Boston office, will become the director of the SEC’s division of corporation finance next month. He has worked in the private sector for three decades and specializes in corporate securities offerings, mergers and acquisitions and executive compensation.

“The commission has an ambitious rulemaking agenda that will be my first priority, and I look forward to continuing to move that agenda forward,” he said in a statement released by the agency.

A coalition of “advanced energy organizations” wants the House Ways and Means Committee to phase out permanent energy tax incentives in favor of "self-regulating” benefits that push clean-energy technology.

Advanced Energy Economy (AEE) sent a Monday letter to the tax-writing committee urging lawmakers to make those changes, arguing the existing tax structure buoys energy sources — such as those from fossil fuels — that no longer need federal support.

“On the basis of this framework, we could move the United States toward a more efficient, business-focused energy tax code that spurs innovation, avoids market distortion, and reduces taxpayer burden,” said AEE CEO Graham Richard said in a Monday statement.

While the prospects of Congress taking up tax code reform remain unclear, AEE has a powerful backer in billionaire former hedge fund manager Tom Steyer.

More than a year since Obama signed the JOBS Act, the SEC has yet to enact rules for capital formation.

Mary Jo White was sworn in on Wednesday as chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Committee.

Democrats on Thursday questioned if Wal-Mart lied about when it first learned of foreign corruption charges.

Campaign finance reform advocates on Tuesday applauded the Obama administration for considering a regulatory proposal that would require corporations to disclose their political giving.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced late last year that it would take up a petition that asks the agency to craft a rule forcing publicly traded companies to list their political contributions on annual statements to shareholders.

A notice of proposed rulemaking from the SEC is expected by April. While the outcome is far from certain, proponents say the proposal’s inclusion on the agency’s regulatory agenda is a watershed moment in the fight to reveal corporate campaign spending.

“It really can’t be overstated, in terms of what this means for the disclosure movement,” Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.) said on a conference call held by the Corporate Reform Coalition. “Our people are really outraged right now with the dominance, the influence this spending is having on our politics.”

Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) is entering the legal fray over new Securities and Exchange Commission rules that will force petroleum and mining companies to publicly disclose payments to foreign governments.

Markey told a federal appeals court Monday that he plans to file an amicus brief to defend SEC rules, finalized in August, that oil industry and business groups have filed suit to overturn.

Markey, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, is a longtime critic of oil companies. He announced last week that he will will run for the Massachusetts Senate seat that is slated to open if, as expected, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) becomes secretary of State.

Nearly 90 percent of people in the United States say there is too much corporate money in politics, according to a new poll from a collection of watchdog and public interest groups.

The poll, released Thursday by the Corporate Reform Coalition and conducted by the Democratic-leaning Bannon Communications Research group, asked 804 people their opinions on the role that corporate money plays in political campaigns.

Eighty-one percent of those polled felt that corporations should only spend money on political campaigns if they disclose their spending immediately. And 80 percent of respondents said companies should only spend money on political campaigns if they get approval from shareholders.

Lisa Gilbert, the director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division, pointed to the poll’s results to argue that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) should require publicly traded companies to reveal their campaign donations.

“Secret corporate spending is appalling in a representative democracy, and this poll shows that the public agrees,” Gilbert said in a statement.

The decision reflects lawmaker concerns over how exactly to protect both national security and whistleblowers pointing out fraud or abuse.

A European Union official is calling on U.S. regulators to issue tough rules forcing oil and mining company disclosure of payments to foreign governments, arguing this will enable “strong common and equivalent” transparency rules among the continents.

“A strong ruling from the [Securities and Exchange Commission] would give a clear and unequivocal message that the EU and the US are united in our drive stronger transparency rules for the extractive [industries],” states the Aug. 10 letter to the SEC from European Parliament member Arlene McCarthy.

It comes ahead of SEC’s planned Aug. 22 completion of the controversial rules, and planned European Parliament action on disclosure rules that she’s playing a lead role in crafting.