Pursuant to Securities’ and Exchange Commission disclosure law rules enumerated in the Exchange Act and Regulation S-K, companies must provide extensive disclosures on executive compensation.  Typically, these disclosures are presented on an annual basis in the company’s Annual Proxy Statement.  The Proxy Statement is a required filing sent out in advance of a company shareholder meeting which solicits shareholder votes on issues like Board Members, governance changes, and executive compensation.  Under Securities and Exchange Commission rules, the Proxy Statement must provide certain content and must be filed with the agency as well as sent to every shareholder.  Among the content required are mandatory executive compensation disclosures.  Under current SEC rules, implemented in 2007, there are two main components to executive compensation disclosure:  The Compensation Discussion and Analysis, and the Summary Compensation Tables.  The Compensation Discussion and Analysis (the “CD&A”) provides narrative disclosures explaining the elements of a company’s executive compensation program.  While there are a few specific requirements, the general design and content of the CD&A is largely up to each individual company.  The Executive Compensation Tables provide further executive compensation information in a set tabular format.  There are several required tables, most notably the Summary Compensation Table which provides an accounting value of total executive compensation for a company’s CEO and top four other highest paid executives.