Very recently the SEC published its final report on the SEC Government-Business Forum on Small Business Capital Formation from the November 17, 2011 event, which I attended in DC. Participants breathlessly await this report each year to see what recommendations make the hot list for the upcoming year. After workshops make a bunch of recommendations that day, after the event participants are asked to rank the importance of each recommendation. The SEC then tallies this up and ranks the suggestions based on popularity. Here’s a cool thing: a good handful from the top 25 recommendations of the list is already in the new JOBS Act! Best way to do it is to give you what they did and didn’t get, starting with the gets:
Forum Participants Get the Following in the JOBS Act:
- End ban on general solicitation and advertising in Reg D 506 transactions with all accrediteds (forum rank #1)
- Raise Reg A ceiling to $50MM and federally preempt state review (forum rank #3, 8 )
- Extend the exemption from Sarbanes-Oxley 404(b) auditor attestation of financial controls to companies up to $250 million or $500 million (forum rank 11B- JOBS Act brings revenue number to $1 billion)
- Provide better scaling of reporting requirements over the first five years after becoming a reporting company (forum rank 13)
- SEC should assist in development of crowd-funding mechanisms (forum rank 14)
- Consider letting issuers determine their own spread between bid and ask prices (forum rank 21 – JOBS Act requires the SEC to study this)
So in one fell swoop from a bi-partisan Congress and willing President, 6 of the top 25 recommendations from the small business conference are now the law of the land (or to be studied). Next, what key recommendations from the forum participants did not make it into the signature bill?
