A stressed economy and new regulations propelled federal regulators to issue record levels of regulatory changes in 2011. Companies can expect those numbers to continue to rise in 2012, according to a recent report conducted by the Governance, Risk and Compliance business unit of Thomson Reuters.
According to the report, "The State of Regulatory Reform 2012," companies around the world struggled to keep abreast of 14,215 regulatory changes from December to November 2011-more than 60 regulatory events each day. The report defines a regulatory event as everything from a speech, which may signal the direction of a new regulation, to a final binding rule.
The number of regulatory changes announced in 2011 marks a 16-percent increase from the 12,179 announcements in 2010. The regulatory changes have grown continuously, up from the 10,075 changes in 2009, and the 8,704 changes announced in 2008.
