SEC Issues Interim Final Rule Regarding Form 10-K Summaries
On June 1, 2016, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) issued an interim final rule expressly permitting, though not requiring, each issuer to include a summary in its Form 10-K, “provided that each item in the summary includes a cross-reference by hyperlink to the material contained in the registrant’s Form 10-K to which such item relates.” The interim final rule, which implements Section 72001 of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (“FAST”) Act, provides registrants the flexibility to determine how to prepare their summaries, so long as the information included is presented fairly and accurately. The rule “does not prescribe the length of the summary (other than to state that the summary shall be brief), specify the Form 10-K disclosure items that should be covered by the summary, or dictate where the summary must appear in the Form 10-K.”