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sec investor advisory committee doesn’t really want the public to interfere with its work January 10, 2013

Posted by Bradley in : consultation , add a comment

The Securities and Exchange Commission Investor Advisory Committee will hold a public meeting on Friday, January 18, 2013, in Multi-Purpose Room LL-006 at the Commission’s headquarters, 100 F Street, NE, Washington, DC 20549. The notice of the meeting invites “the public” to submit written statements and says:

The agenda for the meeting includes: introductory remarks from Chairman Walter and Commissioners; introductory remarks from Committee officers; discussion of administrative matters; and reports from the four Investor Advisory Committee subcommittees (the Investor as Owner subcommittee, the Investor as Purchaser subcommittee, the Investor Education subcommittee, and the Market Structure subcommittee).

The notice doesn’t give any hint of the content of the reports. The minutes of the committee’s June 2012 meeting, which are available on the SEC’s website don’t give any hints of the substance of the committee’s work. There don’t appear to be minutes of the meetings in September and October (or at least not on the SEC’s website) although it would be possible to wade through the webcasts and audio archive of the committee’s meetings. The committee did consider recommendations on the JOBS Act at its telephonic meeting on October 12th (after the October 5th deadline for comments on the SEC’s proposal (a number of other comments were in fact submitted after this deadline)). The committee’s JOBS Act recommendations and its procedures are criticised by Keith Paul Bishop here. The notice of the October meeting (dated October 9th (!)) invited public statements and said:

The agenda for the meeting includes discussion of and voting on a recommendation from the Investor as Purchaser subcommittee regarding the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (JOBS Act) requirements on general solicitation and general advertising in Rule 506 private placements.

But there seems to have been no advance notice of what the committee was thinking of doing, so no real possibility for public comment. The website shows that one public statement,from Keith Paul Bishop, was submitted in response to the notice of the October meeting. He objected to the lack of timely notice:

I strongly urge the Committee to reform its procedures to: (i) ensure that adequate advance notice is given to the public of all meetings (ii) make subcommittee recommendations available to the public sufficiently in advance of Committee meetings so that there is a meaningful opportunity for public comment and (iii) require disclosure of circumstances in which Committee members have potential or actual conflicts of interest or lack independence.

Another statement filed after the meeting contained similar objections:

It is very unclear what each of the Subcommittees is working on and whether there will be an opportunity for public input before individual recommendations are finalized. Except for a list of topics that was described in each of the Subcommittee reports at the September 28 meeting, the investing public is in the dark about what is going on in these Subcommittee discussions.

The committee does not seem to have paid much attention to these comments. The notice period for next week’s meeting is slightly longer than that for the October meeting, but there is still no information about what is to be discussed. And the notice of meeting is not mentioned in the latest news (or press releases) section of the SEC website, but on the what’s new page for January 9th. So, short notice, no information about what the committee proposes to discuss and no real attempt to let the “public” know that the meeting is even happening.

uk consultation policy : a critique January 10, 2013

Posted by Bradley in : consultation , add a comment

The House of Lords’ Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has published a rather critical report on the Government’s new approach to consultation (the written evidence is also published as well as a transcript of a committee session with Oliver Letwin). There’s lots of useful information in the report about the various groups which would like to and do participate in consultations and the difficulties they face in engaging with their members within the time frames set for consultations. For example, the “National Farmers’ Union (NFU) complained about consultations issued during the summer harvest period.” The Government announced a move away from a standard 12 week period for domestic consultations (which in any case was not a hard and fast period) while arguing for 12 weeks for EU consultations. It’s pretty striking to me that some of the more critical reactions seem to have come from business groups. For example:

The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) said that the Department for Business (BIS) had launched a three-week consultation process about the implementation of the new employee-owner status, followed by an overlapping consultation on implementation of Nuttall Review recommendations, “which allowed 13 working days for stakeholders to consult their members and experts, conduct research, formulate their responses and achieve sign-off.”

Many of those who provided evidence to the Committee argued that there was insufficient transparency about consultations and that they were not well co-ordinated within and among government departments. The Committee recommends a website which would provide information about all open consultations. This could find a home on gov.uk (I don’t find this to be an attractive or as yet useful website but it is where they seem to be trying to centralise information about government in the UK). In addition, the Committee calls for an independent review to begin this month with findings to be published by Easter 2013 (end of March).

Update: the idea of a website which would list all open consultations is credited in the Committee’s report to Wendy Bradley (no relation) who writes an interesting blog at tintax.com. Here is a link to her post on the consultation consultation.

uk parliament discussing uk opt-out re crime January 9, 2013

Posted by Bradley in : eu , add a comment

Martin Howe QC is discussing EU law today with two House of Lords EU sub-committees (video is here). Some of his examples of EU over-reaching are ridiculously aged. For example, he cited Defrenne v Sabena, a 1976 decision of the Court of Justice. Surely the time for protesting that decision is long past? The written evidence (much of which apparently addresses the benefits of UK involvement in EU policing and crime policy) is to be available tomorrow.

2013: european year of citizens January 2, 2013

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The European Year of Citizens has its own website. Georgios Papastamkos, Vice President of the European Parliament said:

EU is lacking a truly European public sphere. EU citizens should become the centre of the public debate of Europe’s future. It is high time the EU came closer to its citizens, firstly to listen and then to explain; explain that for more than half a century Europe has been a space of peace and friendship, rights and opportunities, mobility and exchanges, progress and prosperity, education and culture.

“symbolic adoption”, symbolic consumer feedback December 18, 2012

Posted by Bradley in : life , add a comment

Today I experienced the latest attempt to get me to provide feedback on my experience of a repair service – months after initiating the attempts to get the repair done it still hasn’t been done, although the service provider (non-provider?) is very nice when he shows up and seems to be trying hard to do the repair and I give him a good review when they call although they seem to care more about whether he is neat and has a professional manner than whether he gets the job done. I want to call this symbolic solicitation of consumer feedback. But then I notice that the WWF is arranging “symbolic adoptions” and has a package (including a polar bear toy) to memorialize your “adoption”. You can join the Adoption of the Month Club and get a soft toy each month (polar bears are December’s animal). Or you can “adopt” land through the Nature Conservancy. This seems to be symbolic in a different way. It’s clearly not real. At the same time it implies a stronger connection with the organizations promoting the “adoptions” than usually follows a donation. But then symbolic solicitation of consumer feedback is also designed to make the consumer feel differently about the experience of being a consumer.

personal statements in university applications December 7, 2012

Posted by Bradley in : truth , add a comment

A report for the Sutton Trust by Steven Jones (the full paper will be published in the Comparative Education Review) shows some of the differences in personal statements by applicants from privilege and those who are not so privileged. The author makes some suggestions about de-emphasizing the personal statement, ensuring more opportunities are available to more students etc and says:

the risk with all personal statements, regardless of how sensitively they are designed and explained, is that they mirror educational and socio-economic background, with those applicants already benefiting most from the system given opportunity to edge themselves further ahead of those who benefitted least. Though some individual exceptions arise, this research has identified a clear pattern: independent school applicants make fewer writing errors than state school peers of the same academic ability, and are able to draw on work-related and extra-curricular activity that is more relevant and more prestigious. Because information, advice and guidance are not evenly distributed among applicants, the personal statement cannot be assumed to level the higher education admissions playing field. If anything, it tilts it further in the other direction.

But in thinking about university admissions (the report doesn’t specify what courses the students were applying for which could make a difference here) I frankly don’t understand why the higher status “experiences” make the applicants who have had them look stronger university applicants than the “jobs” other students have had. Steven Jones writes that:

those applicants with high-prestige, professionalised experiences are better placed to make meaningful connections with the course on which they hope to study

If the aim in university admissions is to identify those who have been brought up to rule the world, sure, but why should that be what university admissions are about? For example, I don’t see why work-shadowing a UBS stockbroker should or even would be considered to be better than having “a part time job as a drinks waitress working at the KC stadium.” Even if the school in question is a business school I’d think any sort of experience of the world of work could be useful. But it seems that my views are different from the views of those doing the admissions. Then the problem is that attempting to address any of these issues in the context of university admissions or even the sixth form is very late. The children of privilege have by that stage spent more than a decade and a half understanding their place in the world to be very special, and the proposals in the report can’t really get at that issue.

facebook not required December 4, 2012

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To vote in the Capital One Mascot Challenge (for Sebastian the Ibis).

governing for the rich November 19, 2012

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Naked Capitalism explains how banks are ensuring they won’t be subject to the Basel 3 tougher capital rules despite public pronouncements by the G20 that they would implement reforms to financial regulation. And the Financial Stability Board has only published peer reviews of implementation of transnational standards for 6 countries so far – the last reports were published in January 2012. These are the reports that are supposed to keep the G20 countries honest about implementation.

Part of the story that’s being sold is about how all of the new rules are going to make it harder for consumers to borrow money. But (too) easy credit was part of the problem.

Meanwhile, David Cameron (speaking to the CBI) says he wants to stop people going to court to challenge what the government is doing. The press has been reporting this aspect of the speech. Making it more expensive to initiate judicial review is part of the idea. Cameron says the point of this is “to make people think twice about time-wasting.” But it also means it will be harder for those with fewer resources to challenge government than for those with greater resources. The rich can do as much time-wasting as they like (provided they act quickly). Of course, speedy action is also easier for those with more resources.

But Cameron also wants to limit consultation:

Consultations, impact assessments, audits, reviews, stakeholder management, securing professional buy-in, complying with EU procurement rules, assessing sector feedback this is not how we became one of the most powerful, prosperous nations on earth.

I think becoming one of the most powerful and prosperous nations on earth had something to do with invading countries far away and exploiting the people who lived there.

It’s not an accident he gave this speech to the CBI, because the whole message is about promoting business. And we can be sure that banks and other large businesses will continue to have the access necessary to make their views known.

eesc on participatory democracy November 15, 2012

Posted by Bradley in : governance , add a comment

From the press release:

The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) has called for the full implementation of Article 11 of the Lisbon Treaty as a means to strengthening the democratic legitimacy of the EU and avoiding the rise of extremism in Europe. Investing in Article 11 will help bring citizens closer to the EU project and provide the platform for the institutions to listen and better take into account the views of its citizens. The EESC should be a key player in this process.

The opinion should be available from this page.

mid-week medley November 14, 2012

Posted by Bradley in : governance , add a comment

SEC and DOJ publish a Guide to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and the SEC publishes a Small Entity Compliance Guide to Conflict Minerals Disclosure. FSA consults on Implementation of the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive. EBA consults on prudent valuation.

The European Commission proposes legislation to increase the number of women on corporate boards (because non-binding approaches have not worked) (details here):

The Commission has proposed legislation with the aim of attaining a 40% objective of the under-represented sex in non-executive board-member positions in publicly listed companies, with the exception of small and medium enterprises. Currently, boards are dominated by one gender: 85% of non-executive board members and 91.1% of executive board members are men, while women make up 15% and 8.9% respectively. Despite an intense public debate and some voluntary initiatives at national and European level, the situation has not changed significantly in recent years: an incremental average increase of the number of women on boards of just 0.6 percentage points per year has been recorded since 2003.

Viviane Reding says it is a “historic day for gender equality.” Why a targetof 40% represents equality, I am not sure.

The EU has set up a competition for young people (8-24) to go to the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony.