THE Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is allowing publicly listed companies to submit their sustainability reports for 2019 until June 30.
In a memorandum circular that took effect this week, the corporate regulator said companies whose fiscal years ended on Dec. 31, 2019 or Nov. 30, 2019 may submit their sustainability reports within the next two months.
The sustainability report is a required attachment of every company’s annual report submitted to the SEC. Without it, an annual report submission will be rendered incomplete by the regulator.
“[T]he commission…resolves to extend the deadline for the submission of the (sustainability reports) for (publicly listed companies)… to align the same with the extended deadline of the annual report,” it said.
The SEC issued a memorandum circular in March allowing companies to submit their annual reports until June 30 in view of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
With the new memo, the SEC will not automatically consider as incomplete the annual reports that companies have already submitted without the sustainability report attachment.
Companies that want to amend the annual reports they have already submitted to include the sustainability report are allowed to do so, but they should file it together with a copy of the previously submitted annual report.
“The extension shall automatically be applied without the need for a request from… This extension notwithstanding, (publicly listed companies) are not precluded from submitting their (sustainability reports) together with the annual report on the original deadline (i.e. 105 days after the end of fiscal year or 14 April 2020),” the SEC said. — Denise A. Valdez
