Companies often disclose certain regulatory concerns as risk factors in their annual reports that are filed on Form 10-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Its been about 7 years since Dodd-Frank legislation was enacted, and regulations have developed over this period. To see how some companies have modified certain views of risk factors, a PDF is saved at the link below containing a comparison using redline (track changes) of Dodd-Frank or derivatives regulation risks identified in the Form 10-K annual reports under Item 1A “Risk Factors” for 3 energy companies from 2009 – 2016. In some years some companies did not identify such risk factors. This comparison only looks at Dodd-Frank derivatives regulation or derivatives regulation in general. It does not detail other DF rules, e.g., mineral extraction, or other financial regulation, or mention of Dodd-Frank outside of Item 1A of Form 10-K.
https://app.box.com/s/jw675j0ey61714kzaimigznhypp4l86z
Its interesting, for example, to see how one company, in a report filed in March of 2017, updated its assessment of Dodd-Frank factors of 2016 from 2015, in part by adding text as shown by track changes in the screen capture below:
Oh well.
For perspective on the scope of Item 1A in general, in addition to Dodd-Frank and derivatives regulation, the following are some of the types of risk factors identified in Item 1A of the 2014 10K for Noble (which are not part of the comparison):
energy prices
global economy
geopolitical developments
OPEC
government subsidies
transportation availability
shale & drilling developments
changes in fuel for electricity generation
access to government-owned land
trends in tax changes worldwide
natural disasters or adverse weather
anticorruption laws
environmental laws and rules
changes in US energy policy
future legislation and regulation
global populism
anti-development activity
adequate supplies of water for drilling
debt
credit rating
banking regulation, like Basel III rules
hedging limitations on gains
competition
counterparty credit risk
litigation