Regulators Revive Efforts to Pass Dormant Compensation Rules

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When it comes to incentive compensation, everything old is new again.

Financial regulators are expected to revive rulemaking on a number of compensation provisions that never went into effect but were mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010.

Some of the issues that bank and securities regulators could consider in the coming quarters include measures that will gauge executive pay against their performance, as well as mandate clawback provisions and enhanced reporting around incentive compensation structures, said Todd Leone, a partner and global head of compensation at consulting firm McLagan. He was speaking during Bank Director’s 2021 Bank Compensation & Talent Conference, held Nov. 8 to Nov. 10 in Dallas.

All banks with more than $1 billion in assets would need to comply with the final version of the enhanced incentive compensation requirements. Public companies, including banks, would need to comply with any final rules around clawbacks and pay versus performance. If the topics sound familiar, Leone reminded the crowd, it was because they were debated when the banking reform bill initially passed in 2010. Regulators considered rulemaking several years later. But the move to finally pass those rules could catch banks off-guard, especially when considering that rulemaking was essentially paused under the administration of President Donald Trump. Below is Leone’s overview of the proposed rules.

Clawbacks
Clawback provisions, or a company’s ability to take back previously awarded pay or bonuses after a triggering event such as a restatement of earnings, were a hotly debated topic of the post-crisis financial reform bill more than a decade ago. They also came into focus in the bank space after news broke about the Wells Fargo & Co. fake account scandal in late 2016. In 2017, the bank’s board announced it would seek $75 million in previously awarded compensation from two of the senior executives that it held accountable for the scandal. In response, a number of banks created clawback policies of their own.

In October 2021, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, under Chair Gary Gensler, reopened the comment period for the clawback provision, or Section 954 of the act. Leone pointed out that the proposed rule defines a triggering event as an accounting restatement for a material error. A company has up to three years to claw back incentive pay linked to the financial information that is restated; potentially impacted employees include current or former executive officers. Leone expected a final rule by the second half of 2022 but recommended that audience members stand pat until something is published.

“Don’t touch existing policies, since it’s in flux,” he recommended for banks that created their own policies.

Pay For Performance
Pay for performance, or Section 953(a), is a proposed disclosure requirement for public companies, including banks, that would most likely appear as a table in the proxy statement. The disclosure compares total shareholder return for a company against a company-selected peer group, along with compensation figures of a company’s top executives. The company would need to state the principal executive’s reported total compensation for the current year and past four years, along with the average reported total compensation for other named executive officers over the current year and past four years.

Like the clawback proposal, this provision was first debated by the SEC in 2015; it is in “final rule stage,” according to the agency, and Leone believed it could go into effect in the second half of 2022. The rule could create a “fair bit more work” for companies to comply with, he said. But he believed it will have a similar impact on the industry as the CEO pay ratio disclosure, which compares the pay of the CEO to that of the company’s median employee and has yet to lead to significant changes in pay for either group.

Incentive Compensation Rules
Similar to the other two proposals, the enhanced incentive compensation rule, or Section 956, has come up again. The SEC included it as a proposed rule in its agency rules list for spring 2021. Leone joked that he had used the same presentation slide on the enhanced incentive compensation rule a decade ago. The rule has been proposed by regulators twice since the passage of Dodd-Frank: It was 70 pages when it was first proposed in 2011 but had grown to 700 pages when it was re-proposed in 2016, he said.

Leone believed this rule will come up again in the spring of 2022, and that rulemaking will take some time because a number of regulators will need to collaborate on it. It would apply to all banks with more than $1 billion in assets, along with other financial institutions such as credit unions and broker dealers. The requirements would vary based on asset size, with the biggest firms facing the most stringent rules around their incentive compensation agreements. Under previous iterations of the rule, financial institutions would need to include provisions to adjust incentive compensation downward under certain circumstances, outline when deferred incentive compensation could be forfeited and build in a clawback period of seven years.

In the end, Leone recommends banks be proactive when it comes to changing compensation rules.

“Expect more, not less regulation,” he said.

Common Themes in Banks’ Critical Audit Matters

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Beginning in 2019, auditors of large accelerated filers that file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission were required to communicate critical audit matters, or CAMs, in their audit opinions. An analysis of Form 10-K filings for U.S. depository institutions for reporting periods covering June 30, 2019, through Dec. 31, 2019, reveals common themes of interest to bankers. The 10-Ks of large accelerated filers with a Dec. 31, 2019 year-end represent the first time these required communications appeared in a significant amount of bank filings.

Banks that are classified as large accelerated filer might wonder how their CAMs compare to those of other banks; SEC filers that do not have the designation might wonder what to expect in their own audit opinions for fiscal years ending on or after Dec. 15, 2020.

Background
In 2017, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) adopted Auditing Standard 3101, which requires auditors to communicate CAMs in their audit opinions for audits of large accelerated filers with fiscal years ending on or after June 30, 2019.

The PCAOB defines a critical audit matter as “any matter arising from the audit … that was communicated or required to be communicated to the audit committee and that: (1) relates to accounts or disclosures that are material to the financial statements and (2) involved especially challenging, subjective, or complex auditor judgment.” CAMs are intended to provide insight beyond the boilerplate audit opinion and share important information with investors.

Each CAM included in the audit opinion should include:

  • What: Identification of the CAM.
  • Why: Principal considerations that led the auditor to determine the matter was a CAM.
  • How: A description of how the CAM was addressed in the audit, including a description of one or more of the following: (1) the auditor’s response or approach most relevant to the matter; (2) a brief overview of the audit procedures performed; (3) an indication of the outcome of the audit procedures; (4) key observations with respect to the matter.
  • Where: The relevant financial statement accounts or disclosures that relate to the CAM.

Number of CAMs
Crowe specialists analyzed the audit opinions of U.S. depository institutions that are large accelerated filers and filed directly with the SEC (“issuers”) with year-ends between June 30 and Dec. 31, 2019, using data from Audit Analytics.

In 2019, 150 depository institutions reported CAMs; and all depository institutions that both file with the SEC and are large accelerated filers reported at least one CAM. The average number of CAMs per issuer was just shy of 1.5. Approximately two-thirds of issuers reported just one CAM, while just under 10% of issuers reported more than two CAMs. Four CAMs was the maximum observed in any one depository institution, with only one institution reporting that number (Exhibit 1).

CAMs per issuer

CAM themes
Auditors of the 150 bank issuers reported a total of 221 CAMs. Unsurprisingly, the most common CAM was related to the allowance for loan and lease losses. This CAM appeared in every bank issuer’s opinion and constituted 68% of the total CAMs reported by bank auditors. In addition to the 150 CAMs specific to the allowance, eight CAMs were specific to the disclosure around the pending adoption of the Accounting Standards Update (ASU) 2016-13 (Accounting Standards Codification 326), commonly referred to as current expected credit losses accounting standard.

The second most common CAM topic — business combinations — appeared 35 times across 32 issuers’ opinions. Nearly three-fourths (27) of the business combination CAMs were specific to certain acquired assets and liabilities, most commonly loans and identifiable intangible assets. Six CAMs were more general in nature and covered entire acquisition transactions. Two CAMs were specific to Day 2 acquisition accounting.

Twenty-eight CAMs were outside of the common topics of the allowance, CECL and business combinations. These CAMs spanned topics including goodwill impairment, servicing rights valuations, deferred tax asset valuation allowances, contingencies, level three fair values and revenue recognition, among others (Exhibit 2).

Banking CAM topics

The number and nature of CAMs will vary over time, but the most frequently observed topics appearing in 2019 CAMs will likely always be prevalent in bank audit opinions. As more institutions adopt CECL, the incidence of CECL as a CAM almost certainly will increase.

The prevalence of CAMs related to business combinations likely will be directly related to the level of bank acquisitions that occur in a given period. Other CAM topics such as goodwill impairment, deferred tax asset valuation allowances, and fair value considerations might increase or decrease based on market conditions.