*Companies can exclude data subject to privacy laws.

Companies can exclude workers located in countries with privacy laws that prohibit sharing of information such as payroll data, according to the ruling. The SEC notes that jurisdictions including China and Mexico, which are vital manufacturing hubs for many U.S. companies, have adopted or are considering laws that limit access to local compensation data.

“How can a company possibly file financial statements if they can’t get information about what they’re paying their workers?” AFL-CIO’s Slavkin Corzo said. “It’s hard to imagine that this would prevent the transfer of anonymized data, which would be perfectly fine to use in determining the median.”

*Companies can bolster awards before the rule.

A board concerned with displaying a big gap in pay for its 2017 fiscal year could load up the CEO’s package for 2016, then cut it the following year. When companies front-load awards for executives, reported pay, as listed in their summary compensation table, typically drops the next year. Often, the initial grant is intended to reward several years of work.

Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook’s reported pay last year was $9.2 million. That figure doesn’t include 80,000 restricted stock units granted to him in August 2011 that were also meant to compensate him for 2014. After annualizing his initial grant, he was awarded $64.9 million in 2014, according to the Bloomberg Pay Index, a daily ranking of the highest-paid U.S. executives that values compensation as of a company’s fiscal year-end.

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