Those involved in any facet of corporate compliance, governance, and/or financial reporting now have a roadmap of sorts for what they can expect to fill up their calendar—and to submit comments on—in the coming months.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has laid out a schedule of how it plans to tackle its massive rulemaking undertaking to implement the various mandates assigned to it under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

The sweeping reform law passed in July calls for the SEC to write and issue dozens of new regulations and conduct numerous studies, many within a year of its July 21 enactment.

In order to facilitate the flurry of rulemaking, the SEC started seeking public comment on many of the issues it has to address almost immediately after the bill's passage, even before the formal comment periods had begun.

In the near term, the SEC plans to propose, along with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, joint rules governing the oversight of investment advisers and joint rules to create new oversight of the derivatives market, including rules regarding "mixed swaps" and rules related to recordkeeping, reporting, and clearing of security-based swaps. Those proposals are expected between October and December of this year, with final rules expected between April and July.

The agenda also calls for the agency to propose rules to implement the new Whistleblower Incentives and Protection Program established under Section 922 before the end of the year, with final rules due between January and March.

Other items due by December include proposals related to the disclosure and prohibition of certain executive pay structures for some financial institutions (with final rules expected between April and July), and establishment of the new Office of the Investor Advocate, with a report to Congress on the Office objectives expected between April and July.

According to the current plan, most of the compensation and corporate governance provisions under Title IX of the Act won't be finalized until next year.

Proposed rules on shareholder advisory votes, known as say on pay, on executive compensation and golden parachutes are expected by the end of the year, with final rules due sometime between January and March of 2011.

Proposals related to exchange listing standards for Compensation Committee independence and compensation consultant independence and conflict disclosures are due by year-end, with final rules expected between April and July of next year.

Meanwhile, proposals related to executive compensation disclosure under Section 953 of the Act, proposed rules regarding disclosure of pay-for-performance, pay ratios, and hedging by employees and directors, clawback provisions to provide for the recovery of erroneously awarded pay under Section 954, and broker voting of uninstructed retail shares under Section 957 aren't expected until at least April and could come as late as July.

Proposed rules imposing new disclosures related to "conflict minerals," mine safety information, and certain payments made by resource extraction issuers are expected during the next three months, with final rules due by March.

The agency is also supposed to issue by year-end a request for public comment on its mandated study on reducing the costs to issuers with market capitalization between $75 million and $250 million of complying with Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Companies that are non-accelerated filers with market capitalizations of less than $75 million are exempt from the auditor attestation requirement under Dodd-Frank. A report to Congress on the results is slated for sometime between April and July.

The Act also mandates a variety of rules related to the oversight of investment advisers, many of which are expected to be proposed this year and finalized between April and July.

Compliance Week will provide subscribers with detailed coverage of the SEC's Dodd-Frank rulemaking agenda in the Sept. 28 edition.

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