Academic

In the midst of a laundry list of proposed changes for foreign issuers filing in the US - my rough takeaway on those is: now that you can file under IFRS or GAAP, if you choose GAAP, you really have to choose it, not some watered down GAAP-for-foreigners - the SEC revealed that it's considering bestowing a modest research boon on the corporate governance effects crowd.  It may

Amend Form 20-F to require annual disclosure of the significant differences in the corporate governance practices of listed foreign private issuers compared to the corporate governance practices applicable to domestic companies under the relevant exchange?s listing standards

That's a little less exciting than it sounds.  The US exchanges already require this "significant difference" disclosure on the corporate website or in the annual report.  Now the SEC wants to mandate this disclosure in the annual report:

Foreign private issuers frequently opt to provide this disclosure on their websites, rather than in their annual reports. We are proposing to require disclosure of this information in the Form 20-F annual reports filed by all foreign private issuers whose securities are listed on a U.S. exchange. This would consolidate all of the relevant corporate governance disclosure about a listed company in one central location.

But, I suppose, it does make it easy for researchers to know where to look when they begin their coding projects.