The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) yesterday voted to revive a rule, left unfinished since 2015, that would expand the regulator's powers to clawback executives' compensation when a company had to restate its financials due to a compliance lapse, Reuters reported. The SEC said that it would seek a further round of public feedback on the rule, which was mandated by Congress following the 2007-2009 financial crisis, with a view to finalizing the rule likely next year. The SEC proposed a draft in 2015, but failed to finalize it. The effort to revive the rule is part of a broader push by the SEC, now controlled by Democrats, to crack down on corporate malfeasance by boosting its tools for penalizing executives. Gary Genlser, the agency's chair, said in a statement that reopening the comment period provides the watchdog "an opportunity to strengthen the transparency and quality of corporate financial statements, as well as the accountability of corporate executives to their investors." If finalized, the measure would apply to public companies of all sizes and to any executive officer who performs policymaking decisions and who has received incentive compensation, including stock options, dramatically expanding the scope of the agency's existing clawback powers which were created in 2002.
