SEC confidential treatment (CT) orders are regulatory exemptions that enable firms to redact proprietary information from SEC filings if the disclosure would cause competitive harm and if the information is immaterial to investors. This study examines the role of firms' political connections in the SEC's decisions to approve versus reject CT requests before and after Congressional intervention and internal SEC scrutiny into the CT process. CT requests from politically connected firms are less likely to be rejected before Congressional intervention and internal SEC scrutiny and are more likely to be rejected following these events. When the SEC rejects CT requests, firms must disclose the contents of the unapproved redactions. These disclosures are informative to investors, on average, and are less informative following Congressional intervention and internal SEC scrutiny. Together, these findings contribute to the literature on political influence in SEC oversight and disclosure regulation and provide unique evidence on the role of Congressional intervention in SEC decision making.

SEC 保密处理 (CT) 命令是监管豁免，如果披露会导致竞争损害并且信息对投资者无关紧要，公司可以从 SEC 文件中编辑专有信息。本研究考察了公司的政治关系在 SEC 在国会干预和内部 SEC 审查 CT 流程之前和之后决定批准还是拒绝 CT 请求中的作用。来自政治关联公司的 CT 请求在国会干预和 SEC 内部审查之前不太可能被拒绝，并且更有可能在这些事件之后被拒绝。当 SEC 拒绝 CT 请求时，公司必须披露未经批准的修订内容。平均而言，这些披露为投资者提供了信息，在国会干预和 SEC 内部审查之后，信息量较少。总之，这些发现有助于有关 SEC 监督和披露监管中政治影响的文献，并为国会干预在 SEC 决策中的作用提供独特的证据。