There's a new sheriff in town

A victory for plain language! The Securities and Exchange Commission has cited 40 companies for submitting reports that fail to meet the SEC's Plain English guidelines.

Among the gems cited by the SEC was a proxy statement that described performance-based compensation as being:

based on a multiple of the named executive's base salary in effect in February 2006 and the annual bonus awarded in February 2006 for the 2005 period. The potential payment in 2009 as a multiple of salary and bonus at February 2006, for each named executive, is .75X at threshold, 1.50X at target and 2.00X at maximum.

Come again?

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