New SEC regs on exec comp won't help, says Toledo Blade editorial

Anytime a daily newspaper other than the Wall Street Journal bothers to write an editorial about a proposed Securities and Exchange Commission regulation, it’s time to stand up and notice. The Toledo Blade on Friday wrote an editorial criticizing the new SEC proposal requiring companies to disclose executive compensation perks.

The Blade editorial reads in part: “That’s the problem. In the post-Enron age, public ire has been raised over the looting of companies by avaricious CEOs but little of substance has been done to give shareholders a greater say in whether the businesses they ostensibly own are governed in their best interest. Simply divulging the true extent of lavish pay and perks won’t do much to limit them.”

However, it will make for better compensation stories for business journalists if we’re able to write about some of the things, like retirement packages, that companies have been able to hide in the past.