Kochs Attack CEO Pay Transparency Rule

August 17, 2015

It’s hardly shocking that the Koch brothers, long dedicated to disrupting, delaying, and preventing the implementation of Dodd-Frank regulations, are having a go at another Dodd-Frank rule.

Two weeks ago, the SEC adopted a Dodd-Frank CEO pay disclosure rule that would require public corporations to disclose “their chief executives’ total annual compensation as a ratio to their workers’ median pay,” as NPR described it.

So, the rule would promote corporate transparency, highlight income inequality, and conceivably lower CEO pay as corporations are exposed for contributing to the growing income inequality gap.

The least surprising news of — perhaps — all time?

Mercatus Center, a Koch-createdKoch-backed, and Koch policy-promoting think tank — where billionaire CEO of Koch Industries Charles Koch is a board member — opposes the CEO pay ratio disclosure rule and continues to lobby against it, even as its implementation proceeds.

In an opinion piece for Real Clear Markets, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center wrote:

Section 953 of Dodd Frank requires the Securities and Exchange Commission to write a rule requiring public companies to report the ratio of the CEO’s total compensation to median employee’s total compensation. […] That’s too bad, because pay ratios didn’t cause the recent crisis and don’t address the inequality that matters. The crisis was about the spread of insolvency risk throughout the financial system.

It’s not shocking that a Koch lackey at a Koch-funded and controlled organization would oppose requirements mandating greater corporate transparency and increased exposure of CEO pay inequity and the roots of income inequality.

And it’s not shocking that the billionaire Kochs continue their five year-long — and counting — effort to neutralize Dodd-Frank and its provisions that stabilize the economy and protect American investors, but threaten Charles and David’s profit margins.

Paid for by American Bridge 21st Century Foundation