Dissent by SEC Commissioner Hester M. Peirce  | The SEC Levels Up: Statement on In re Activision Blizzard

It is also difficult to see where the logic of this Order stops. When the SEC gets this granular, the limits are not clear. If workplace misconduct must be reported to the disclosure committee, so too must changes in any number of workplace amenities and workplace requirements, and so too must any multitude of factors relevant to other risk factors. The requirement cannot be that a company’s disclosure controls and procedures must capture potentially relevant, but ultimately—for purposes of disclosure—unimportant information. As I read it, in this Order, the SEC once again has sat down at the gaming console to play its new favorite game “Corporate Manager.” Using disclosure controls and procedures as its tool, it seeks to nudge companies to manage themselves according to the metrics the SEC finds interesting at the moment. For Activision Blizzard, today, that metric is workplace misconduct statistics, but other issues will follow. In this level of the enforcement game, the SEC has added $35,000,000 to its point total despite the Order not identifying any investor harm….

Source: Dissent by SEC Commissioner Hester M. Peirce | The SEC Levels Up: Statement on In re Activision Blizzard