How to find filings on EDGAR, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's database.
Feb. 12, 2025 – The big three legal databases, Bloomberg Law, Lexis+, and Westlaw Precision all provide business intelligence, advanced search features, and contract drafting tools.
But if you don’t research securities law regularly and don’t depend on databases with advanced features and tools for corporate research, you can find the disclosure filings by publicly traded companies are freely available at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) EDGAR database.
Meet EDGAR
The SEC’s online filing database,
EDGAR (Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis and Retrieval) is a system that publicly traded companies and individuals use to comply with federal securities laws.
There is a wealth of corporate information in the database, including:
financial statements;
market trends;
risk factors;
environmental factors;
legal proceedings;
material contracts; and
executive biographies.
Finding Material Agreements Attached to Filings
Today, I will focus on finding material agreements, which are attached to filings as exhibits.
Genevieve Zook is the reference & instructional services librarian at the U.W. Law Library. She is currently chair of the Public Relations Committee and past president of the
Law Librarians Association of Wisconsin, a chapter of the American Association of Law Libraries.
If you are new to securities law, knowing the names of the forms and what they contain is useful.
Here is a handy chart compiled by the SEC describing the forms.
Also, keep in mind that not all agreements are available – it will depend on what the company considers to be material.
To locate material contracts, first locate the company’s Exhibit Index. The Exhibit Index is Item 15 in the table of contents of the company’s Form 10-K filing. Under the Securities Act of 1934, public companies are required to file annual reports (15 U.S.C. 78m). The administrative rules are found at
Regulation S-K, 17 CFR 601 - S-K § 229.601.
Material contracts are listed as Exhibit 10. The Legal Information Institute (LLI)
created a chart to describe which forms require exhibits, and in 2017, the SEC amended their rule to include hyperlinks to the exhibits. For more on this requirement see 17 CFR 229, 232, 239, and 249. The hyperlink requirement simplifies locating material contracts in full text even when the legal agreement or contract is listed by reference.
Researching a Known Company
If you have a known company and you are searching for their material contracts, the best place to begin is to locate the company’s latest 10-K filing. You can find this on EDGAR or, as an alternative to EDGAR, on the company’s website.
For example,
this is Kohl’s investor relations page. Most public companies link directly to EDGAR, although the challenge can be to locate the investor information on a company’s busy homepage. If you don’t see the investor page as a tab, scroll to the bottom of the homepage. The investor page will include links to the public filings as well as stock and shareholder information.
Searching by Keyword or Clauses or for a Specific Type of Contract
Lexis+ provides
a free available guide on how to find exhibits. It also includes an exhibit list by type, and tips for keyword searching that you can modify to use in an EDGAR’s Advance Search feature (select “more options” in the Basic EDGAR search menu).
See Figure 1, a screenshot on how a modified search might look in EDGAR as an Advanced Search.
Figure 1: A modified advanced search in EDGAR: the search involves a purchase agreement for the last five years from the current date using filing types 10-K, 10-Q, and 8-K, for businesses incorporated in Wisconsin.
In this search I am looking for “purchase agreements” as an attachment to a 10-K, 10-Q or 8-K filing in the past five years that is incorporated in Wisconsin.
See this search on EDGAR.
A Few Odds and Ends
The SEC provides more than corporate filings. It also includes their no-action letters, decisions, an
EDGAR Filer Manual, links to the
statutes and regulations under their jurisdiction, and has an additional resource page for
investors. The SEC also provides a chart for their
Rulemaking Activity, if you want to read about what they are currently proposing.
Other Resources on Securities Filings
The Wisconsin State Law Library provides guides on securities law, at,
Securities - Wisconsin State Law Library, and the guide includes Wisconsin resources. The University of Wisconsin also has a
Securities Law Guide.
If you have any questions or cannot locate a material contract, please contact a reference librarian at a law library in Wisconsin in person, by phone or email.
UW Law Library Contact Information: 5th floor of the Law Library at the Reference Desk, by phone (262-3394), by email, or by
chat.
Wisconsin State Law Library Contact Information:800-322-9755
Marquette Law Library Contact Information: Reference Desk: (414) 288-3837 &
Ask the Reference Desk.
