SEC Grapples With Crowdfunding Rulemaking

On April 5, 2012 President Obama signed the JOBS Act into law.

 

The SEC’s Rulemaking Duty

Some of the rules went into effect immediately; others are in the drafting process.   Within 90 days of the signing of the Act (i.e. mid July), the SEC is required to issue enabling rules as to other portions of the Act, including rules related to general solicitation and advertising of accredited investors under Rule 506 of Regulation D. For the SEC that is the easy part.

Finally, the SEC has up to 270 days (beginning of 2013) to release rules relating to the new crowdfunding exemption and crowdfunding platform portal regulations. That will be difficult part.  As a matter of background, the biggest opponents of the crowdfunding bill were the SEC and FINRA.  It is easy to see why, the SEC’s mission, direct from their website is:

“The mission of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is to protect investors, maintain fair, orderly,

SEC Issues Guidance on Registration and Deregistration Under Jobs Act

On April 5, 2012 President Obama signed the JOBS Act into law.  Some of the rules went into effect immediately, such as the ability of an Emerging Growth Company to file a registration statement and seek confidential treatment during the review process.  For this process the EGC would avail itself of the new Securities Act Section 6(e).  The SEC issued, albeit limited, guidance on this process for EGC’s yesterday, April 10, 2012.

 

SEC Guidance on the JOBS Act

On April 11, 2012, the SEC issued guidance on the JOBS Act amendments to Section 12(g) and Section 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (Exchange Act).  The full text of this guidance, and the guidance issued on new Section 6(e) is available on the SEC website.

The JOBS Act amends Section 12(g) and Section 15(d) of the Exchange Act as to threshold shareholder requirements and registration and deregistration requirements for banks and bank holding companies.  This blog