On March 15, 2024, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit granted an administrative stay of the climate-related disclosure rules recently adopted by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”). The SEC rules require public companies to provide information about climate-related risks that could significantly impact their business or financial statements. See
Mandatory Disclosures
QUICK REFERENCE CHART ON KEY GLOBAL CLIMATE-RELATED DISCLOSURE RULES
Climate disclosure regulations are among the most significant and complex challenges faced by companies and boards, with a variety of requirements emanating from numerous governmental authorities and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in recent years. Mayer Brown lawyers from around the world produced a White Paper on Global Climate Change Disclosure Initiatives and Board Corporate Governance Considerations…
GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE DISCLOSURE INITIATIVES AND BOARD CORPORATE GOVERNANCE CONSIDERATIONS
Climate disclosure regulations are among the most significant and complex challenges faced by companies and boards, with a variety of requirements emanating this past year from numerous governmental authorities and non-governmental organizations. This white paper—an expanded version of a white paper we published in January—discusses key features and differences of a dozen authorities, followed by…
Climate Change Disclosure Rules & Other ESG Developments
After much anticipation, on March 6, 2024, the US Securities and Exchange Commission voted to adopt final rules that require reporting by public companies of climate change-related disclosure. While the final rules differ from the SEC’s controversial proposed rules in significant ways, the final rules are prescriptive, and require substantial new, additional disclosures.
The SEC…
SEC Adopts Climate Change Disclosure Rules Applicable to Public Companies and Offerings
The Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) has adopted new rules that require public companies to disclose substantial information about the material impacts of climate-related risks on their business, financial condition, and governance (the “Final Rules”). The SEC says that “climate-related risks, their impacts, and a public company’s response to those risks can significantly affect…
Climate-Risk Disclosure Rules
The Securities and Exchange Commission adopted (in a 3-2 vote) final rules related to climate-related disclosures. These rules had first been proposed in March 2022. In his opening remarks, SEC Chair Gensler noted that the climate-change related disclosure rules will apply to public companies and to public offerings, and are intended to benefit investors by…
LAWSUIT CHALLENGES RECENT CALIFORNIA CLIMATE DISCLOSURE LAWS
A new lawsuit filed by several business interest groups seeks to overturn two recent California laws relating to emissions disclosures (SB253) and climate-related financial risk disclosures (SB261), which would require thousands of covered companies to begin making disclosures as early as 2026. This Legal Update addresses the main arguments of the lawsuit, the initial reaction…
UK Sustainability Disclosure Framework – FCA publishes final rules on Sustainability Disclosure Requirements and investment labels
On 28 November 2023, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (“FCA“) published its “Sustainability Disclosure Requirements (“SDR“) and investment labels” policy statement (PS23/16) (the “Policy Statement“). The Policy Statement introduces a set of new rules aimed at tackling greenwashing, including investment product sustainability labels and restrictions on how terms…
2023 has been the year of the taxonomy
Our international ESG team has been keeping an eye on what’s going on with regards to green taxonomies. With so much activity already this year, we summarize some of the key developments below.
EU
We recently published this reminder of the EU’s taxonomy framework. Our publication is particularly relevant to non-EU groups with large subsidiaries…
The EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive is upon us – what non-EU companies should know and do
The EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (“CSRD“) entered into force on 5 January 2023 and the associated European Sustainability Reporting Standards (“ESRS“) were adopted by the European Commission on 31 July 2023. Together, the CSRD and ESRS create detailed sustainability reporting requirements that will apply to a significant number of EU and non-EU companies and substantially increase the scope of their sustainability reporting.
Application of the rules is now imminent and, for some, CSRD reporting periods will begin from 1 January 2024.
In this update, we take a look at the implications of the CSRD for non-EU companies and what companies can do to prepare.Continue Reading The EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive is upon us – what non-EU companies should know and do