Among the many provisions of the new Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act is a revised policy on clawbacks. While Sarbanes-Oxley required companies to have a clawback policy in the event of a financial restatement caused by executive misconduct, Dodd-Frank takes it one step further, requiring clawbacks for any financial restatement, regardless of whether misconduct occurred. Companies that don’t comply with this regulation will be prohibited from appearing in the national securities exchanges and associations, meaning that we’ll likely see clawback policies adopted universally in 2011 or soon thereafter.

In the meantime, we’ve taken our annual look at how clawback policies shake out in the Fortune 100. These policies continue to be on the rise, with 82.1 percent of companies adopting them. It’s hard to believe that only four years ago, in 2006, a mere 17.6 percent of companies had them. 2009 has been the biggest year yet for clawbacks, with 44.2 percent of companies implementing or amending them, but 2010 is right on its heels with 30.8 percent. A few other statistics from the report:

• 81.3 percent of 2010’s clawback policies had a provision for clawbacks in the event of a financial restatement, 78% had provisions in the event of unethical behavior by an executive, and 63.7 percent had both.
• Financial and insurance companies were most likely to have clawbacks. 90.5 percent of F100 financial and insurance companies had a clawback policy in 2010, compared to 82.4 percent in 2009 and 50 percent in 2008. This is partially because TARP requires clawback policies for senior executives.
• Most clawback policies include key executives and employees. 67.4 percent include this group, while 13.04 percent include all of a company’s employees.
• The first clawback policies mainly focused on cash incentives, but 81.5 percent now cover equity incentive compensation, and 26.1 percent cover outstanding options. Cash incentives still lead the pack, with 87 percent of policies covering them.

To learn more about clawback trends in the Fortune 100, including specific examples of proxy disclosures, request the 2010 report.

With pay for performance still on everyone’s minds, Equilar has released two recent reports on stock ownership guidelines for executives and directors in the Fortune 250. Based on the CD&A disclosures of 237 companies in FY 2009, this report shows that a large majority of CEOs and directors are placed under some kind of stock-ownership policy– 84.4 percent of CEOs and 84.0 percent of directors, respectively.

Here are a few other interesting findings from the two reports:

• Ownership guidelines and holding requirements, alone or combined, have increased for both groups from 2008 to 2009. While CEOs are increasingly asked to maintain a combination of both, however, very few directors are asked to meet holding requirements– only 19.8 percent see them, whether alone or combined with ownership guidelines. 40.1 percent of CEOs, on the other hand, have some kind of holding requirement.
• Multiples of base salary is still the overwhelming favorite in terms of ownership target design for CEOs, with 82.2 percent of companies using it. The field for directors, however, is much more mixed: while most companies use multiples of the retainer (54.8 percent) or setting a fixed number of shares (23.9 percent), both of these plans have been decreasing in popularity. Setting a fixed value of shares, or coming up with a totally unique plan, are both increasingly common for directors.
• The median target ownership for CEOs is $6 million in stock, compared to $262,850. Both of these values have either stayed static or slightly risen from 2008. At most companies, stock options aren’t counted toward ownership targets for either CEOs or directors.
• Companies are disclosing more details about ownership guidelines than ever: compliance status, anti-hedging policies, non-compliance penalties, hardship provisions, and retirement clauses were all discussed in CD&As in 2009. The full reports provide key disclosure examples for all of these areas.

For more info on stock ownership guidelines, click the relevant link to request the full report:

• 2010 Executive Stock Ownership Guidelines
• 2010 Director Stock Ownership Guidelines