■ Receipt of a comment does not necessarily mean that the Staff has reached a final conclusion on the topics addressed in the comment. For that reason, if the company does not agree with the Staff’s request for suggested or amended disclosure, the company should feel free to identify the points raised by the Staff with which it respectfully disagrees. When explaining such divergence of opinion, the company should provide the Staff with any bespoke facts and circumstances and provide as much insight as possible into the judgments it made in applying the relevant regulations or guidance. ■ Best practice is to review recent comment letters and responses to keep apprised of trends relating to SEC comments issued to peer companies before a comment letter has been received. Reviewing publicly available correspondence can also prove useful when weighing how to respond to a comment letter; however, companies should be careful not to rely too heavily on previously published correspondence when crafting their response letters. For a stronger, more compelling response, registrants should cite authoritative literature and SEC guidance whenever possible. ■ If the comment requests additional or revised disclosure in future filings, consider including the proposed additional or revised disclosure in the response letter, and identifying the page in the filing where the revised or additional disclosure appears, to minimize the chances of receiving future comments relating to the applicable disclosure. ■ Remember that comments and responses are made public on the SEC’s EDGAR website after the review process has ended. While this may be helpful in terms of reviewing responses to comments from similarly situated companies, it also means that your responses ultimately will be publicly available. Accordingly, be mindful of what you provide in response and consider ahead of responding whether to request confidential treatment A Comparative Analysis of 2022 and 2023 SEC Comments Issued to REITs | 4
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTU5OTQ5