The SEC's New Selective Disclosure Rules Under Regulation FD

After extensive public comment from investor activists, market professionals, academicians and the corporate and securities bar, on August 15, 2000, the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") adopted Regulation FD (fair disclosure) to redress the practice by issuers of selectively imparting material, non-public information to securities analysts, institutional investors and other market participants.

Regulation FD provides the SEC with a direct remedy against exclusionary disclosure practices of public companies. The regulation is not intended to impose a new general requirement on issuers to publicly disclose material corporate developments as and when they occur, nor is it intended to chill the orderly flow of corporate information into the marketplace or obstruct conversations between issuers and analysts that do not confer an informational advantage vis a vis the general investor public. Rather, it constitutes an SEC disclosure (and not an