What to Expect From Trump’s SEC
Market participants are speculating about the new Trump deregulation agenda and how it will impact the SEC. With Republicans in control of the 119th Congress, we expect to see SEC deregulation and changes aimed at capital formation and easing burdens on public companies. The incoming Trump administration will likely emphasize that reduced regulatory burdens may be beneficial to investments in new projects, expanded operations, and increased hiring. Of course, the existing regulatory scheme warns that deregulation would lead to excessive risk and lead to increased fraud.
Trump has been a strong supporter of digital assets and cryptocurrencies, which may result in scaling back enforcement actions as well as proposing new regulations or designating another enforcement agency to regulate this area, such as the the CFTC.
We also expect that controls and procedures violations will be reduced or eliminated and the SEC will scale back, eliminate, or not pursue enforcement actions for defective environmental, social, and corporate governance disclosures, absent an egregious fraud.
The following changes may be made to existing SEC regulations:
- Elimination of corporate greenhouse gas emissions reporting requirements.
- Limited pursuit of cyber-related and AI cases absent an egregious fraud.
- Repeals and/or changes to issuer disclosure of social, ideological, political, or “human capital” unless constitutes material information pertaining to minerals, mine safety, resource extraction, and CEO pay ratio disclosures.
- Preempt Blue Sky registration, qualification, and continuing reporting obligations for securities traded on national securities exchanges, like NYSE or NASDAQ, or alternative trading systems.
- Revise Rule 144 and other regulations to reduce or eliminate holding and other restrictions for securities resales.
- Raising or eliminating Rule 144 volume limitations pertaining to insiders.
- Revise SEC administrative proceedings to eliminate them altogether or provide defendants/respondents in SEC administrative proceedings an option to elect their forum in either the SEC’s administrative law courts or Article III courts.
In the exempt unregistered offering space, the following steps could be taken to enhance capital formation:
- Project 2025’s proposed to preempt all primary and secondary Regulation A offerings from state Blue Sky law registration and qualification requirements.
- Expanding or removing the definition of accredited investor under Regulation D for private offerings and removing other restrictions that currently exist in Regulation D offerings.
- Establish exemptions for certain finders and dealers from broker-dealer registration requirements.
Any of the above changes or a combination may enhance interest in going public transactions and raising capital through registered and exempt securities offerings.
To speak with a Securities Attorney, please contact Brenda Hamilton at 200 E Palmetto Park Rd, Suite 103, Boca Raton, Florida, (561) 416-8956, or by email at [email protected]. This securities law blog post is provided as a general informational service to clients and friends of Hamilton & Associates Law Group and should not be construed as and does not constitute legal advice on any specific matter, nor does this message create an attorney-client relationship. Please note that the prior results discussed herein do not guarantee similar outcomes.
Hamilton & Associates | Securities Attorneys
Brenda Hamilton, Securities Attorney
200 E Palmetto Park Rd, Suite 103
Boca Raton, Florida 33432
Telephone: (561) 416-8956
Facsimile: (561) 416-2855
www.SecuritiesLawyer101.com
