SEC announces agenda and panelists for July 9 roundtable on emerging markets and China

As we discussed in our Financial Services Alerts on May 7 and May 20, the US Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) will be hosting a roundtable on July 9 to gather the views of investors, other market participants, regulators and industry experts in an effort to continue raising investor awareness about the risks of investing in emerging markets.  The roundtable will provide a forum for presenting views and comments on ways that investors can be made aware of the significant risks involved when investing in emerging markets and to explore possible ways to mitigate them.  As noted in our alerts dated May 4 and May 27, the SEC and other US regulators are increasingly focusing their attention to emerging markets – in particular, China.

On July 1, the SEC announced the agenda and panelists for the roundtable, which will be webcast live on www.SEC.gov beginning at 9:30am ET.  Anyone who wishes to attend can go to the SEC’s website and access the webcast.

Beginning with Opening Statements by SEC Chairman Jay Clayton and each of the SEC Commissioners, the roundtable will consist of four hour-long panels:

Panel One:    Investments in Emerging Markets by US Retail Investors, moderated by Peter Driscoll, Director, SEC Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations and S.P. Kothari, Chief Economist and Director, SEC Division of Economic and Risk Analysis

Panel Two:    Limitations on Inspection and Enforcement in Emerging Markets; Auditors’ Global Oversight of Member Firms in Emerging Markets, moderated by Stephanie Avakian, Co-Director SEC Division of Enforcement and Sagar Teotia, SEC Chief Accountant

Panel Three: Disclosure and Reporting Considerations with Respect to Investments in Emerging Markets, moderated by Raquel Fox, Director, SEC Office of International Affairs and William Hinman, Director, Division of Corporation Finance

Panel Four:   Improving Emerging Market Investing for US Retail Investors and Markets, moderated by Dalia Blass, Director, SEC Division of Investment Management and Christian Sabella, Deputy Director, SEC Division of Trading and Markets

Panelists will include representatives from a variety of international investment community participants such as Carson Block, Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Muddy Waters Capital LLC; Noriko Honda Chen, Equity Portfolio Manager, Capital Group; and Amy McGarrity, Chief Investment Officer, Public Employees’ Retirement Association of Colorado.  Other panelists include:

• William Duhnke III, Chairman, Public Company Accounting Oversight Board
• Robert Zink, Chief of the Fraud Section, US Department of Justice
• Paul Gillis, PhD, Professor of Practice, Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management
• John Tuttle, Vice Chairman and Chief Commercial Officer, NYSE Group Inc.
• John Zecca, Executive Vice President and Global Chief Legal and Regulatory Officer, Nasdaq

We anticipate that each of these panels will provide insight on the US perspective regarding issues related to emerging market companies and may also provide a sense of the direction of additional US regulation in this area.  Our team will update you after the roundtable and share our takeaways from the discussion.

If you have any questions regarding the SEC roundtable, or if you would like assistance in analyzing these issues and preparing comments for submission to the SEC, please contact the authors or a member of the DLA Piper financial services team.

This information does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal advice.  All information, content, and materials are for general informational purposes only.  No reader should act, or refrain from acting, with respect to any particular legal matter on the basis of this information without first seeking legal advice from counsel in the relevant jurisdiction.