SEC Issues Interpretive Guidance On Climate Change Disclosure

The SEC's guidance is intended to ensure that existing disclosure rules are consistently applied by public companies in a manner that provides enhanced clarity to investors.

On January 27, 2010, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) voted to release interpretive guidance on existing SEC disclosure requirements relating to climate change. In her remarks, SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro clarified that the SEC's guidance is intended to ensure that existing disclosure rules are consistently applied by public companies in a manner that provides enhanced clarity to investors, and that the interpretive guidance is not an attempt by the SEC to weigh in on the existence or potential causes of global warming, or to amend well-defined SEC rules concerning public company reporting obligations or determinations of materiality.