n a February 16 letter to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), CII generally supports the PCAOB’s proposed amendments on auditors’ use of confirmation, whereby auditors obtain evidence from third parties about management’s financial statement assertions.

The SEC February 15 adopted rule changes to shorten the standard settlement cycle for most broker-dealer transactions in securities from two business days after the trade date to one.

A pushback is emerging in some states against legislation and directives that would restrict financial institutions that are deemed to “boycott” energy companies.

Members of the Investor Alliance for Human Rights (IAHR) filed 15 shareholder proposals at Alphabet (Google), Amazon and Meta (Facebook) raising a variety of human rights concerns at each company ranging from inadequate content moderation and the proliferation of hate speech to a lack of transparency and accountability due to the use of ‘black box’ algorithms.

The Conference Board predicts that, just like during proxy season 2022, the upcoming season will see average support for shareholder proposals on environmental and social topics decline and opposition to directors and low support for say-on-pay proposals increase.

Two firms are offering services intended to allow more shareholders to become directly involved at the companies in which they invest.