KPMG flags mid-year SEC shifts for reporting and compliance teams

SEC Chair Paul Atkins instructed the Division of Corporation Finance to conduct a comprehensive review of Regulation S-K, and KPMG is treating its mid-year SEC update as a working map for the rest of 2026, not a housekeeping webcast. The update is aimed at people in audit, reporting and advisory.

A mid-year checkpoint with real workload implications

The webcast is split into two identical 60-minute sessions, one on June 25, 2026 at 1:00 PM ET and another on June 26, 2026 at 11:30 AM ET. Attendees can earn 1.0 CPE credit by completing one session and responding to live check-ins.

The session will cover recent SEC reporting developments, emerging rulemaking and shifting areas of focus. It will also address implications for periodic reporting, disclosures and compliance priorities through the rest of 2026.

Why the SEC backdrop is busier than usual

The SEC is advancing a broad slate of regulatory proposals, a theme KPMG flagged in its Q2 2026 Quarterly Outlook. Under the Regulatory Flexibility Act, the SEC must publish a rules agenda twice a year identifying actions it may consider in the next 12 months.

Two May 2026 proposals have outsized relevance for public-company teams. One would simplify reporting requirements and registered offerings for public companies, while another would rescind the climate-related disclosure rules adopted in March 2024.

What the filing teams will feel first

The practical effect of this kind of SEC activity usually shows up in the middle of the workflow, not just at the end. Periodic reporting teams need to revisit disclosure quality earlier, internal controls need cleaner documentation, and compliance calendars need enough slack to absorb changes in rulemaking without forcing a last-minute rewrite before quarter-end or year-end filings.

Regulation S-K sits at the center of public-company disclosure, so any push toward simplification or materiality review can cascade into earnings releases, MD&A drafting, risk factors and the way management explains judgments to boards, auditors and investors.

Compliance is widening beyond reporting mechanics

The pressure is not limited to financial statement disclosures. KPMG’s SEC 2026 Priorities alert lists 2026 examination priorities as cybersecurity, Regulation S-ID, Regulation S-P, emerging financial technology, and targeted reviews of compliance programs, governance, investor protection and disclosures.

That stretches the work across audit, advisory and risk teams at once. Cybersecurity and identity-theft rules bring privacy, controls and incident response into the conversation; Regulation S-P raises the bar on customer information protection; and emerging financial technology forces teams to think about governance and investor protection in businesses that may be moving faster than their control environments.

A client can no longer treat reporting, compliance and digital risk as separate lanes if the SEC is examining them together, and KPMG professionals will feel that in the form of broader request lists, more cross-functional calls and tighter expectations around evidence.

KPMG is signaling this is a year-end issue, not a mid-year formality

The firm’s earlier SEC Update 2026 webcast in January was framed around recent SEC activity, conference highlights and what to expect in 2026. By June, the message has sharpened: the SEC’s agenda is active enough that the mid-year update is being used as a checkpoint for where filing strategy, disclosure drafting and compliance planning need to go next.

For managers trying to staff the second half of the year, the heaviest lift may not be the headline rule changes themselves, but the operational cleanup around them: review cycles, technical accounting support, controls updates, and the constant need to keep periodic reporting aligned with a moving SEC target.