SEC Adopts Final Executive Compensation Clawback Rules

One year after reopening the comment period, and seven years after first publishing proposed rules, on October 26, 2022, the SEC adopted final rules on listing standards for the recovery of erroneously awarded incentive-based executive compensation (“Clawback Rules”).  The Clawback Rules implement Section 954 of the Dodd-Frank Act and require that national securities exchanges require disclosure of policies regarding and mandating clawback of compensation under certain circumstances as a listing qualification. The proposed rules were first published in July 2015 (see HERE) and have moved around on the SEC semiannual regulatory agenda from proposed to long-term and back again for years.

The final rules require a listed issuer to file the policy as an exhibit to its annual report and to include disclosures related to its recovery policy and recovery analysis where a recovery is triggered. New Exchange Act Rule 10D-1 directs national securities exchanges and associations to establish listing standards that require a listed company to: (i) adopt