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ARTICLE · 31 MAY 2023

SEC Turns Up Heat On Climate-Related Comment Letters

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In September 2021, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) provided a sample comment letter, which included nine potential climate-related comments the SEC may issue to companies...

United StatesEnvironment
Farzad Damania
Farzad Damania
Ryan A. Lilley
Ryan A. Lilley
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In September 2021, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) provided a sample comment letter, which included nine potential climate-related comments the SEC may issue to companies regarding their climate-related disclosure or absence thereof. We have reviewed and analyzed the climate-related comment letters issued to over 70 companies on a stand-alone basis. Initially, it appeared that the SEC focused exclusively on larger companies with a market capitalization exceeding approximately $3.5 billion. However, during the second half of 2022, the SEC issued comments to companies with market capitalizations as low as approximately $500 million. Additionally, the SEC appears to be issuing significantly more first-round comments per company and about the same number of second-round comments per company. In our initial review of climate-related comment letters issued to 25 companies as of April 2022, the SEC issued 4.7 first-round comments per company. However, the SEC now

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