Category Archives: SEC News

Chairman Atkins Discusses His ACT Strategy and Commission Priorities

On April 21, 2026, SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins delivered keynote remarks at a meeting of the Economic Club of Washington.  In his remarks he discussed his ACT strategy:

Advance the SEC’s regulatory frameworks into the modern era,

Clarify the SEC’s jurisdictional lines, and

Transform the SEC rulebook by returning it to first principles.

Chairman Atkins’ “advance” discussion focused on crypto and private market related issues.  His “clarify” remarks highlighted the Commission’s recent Memorandum of Understanding with the CFTC.  In the “transform” section he discussed the Enforcement Division’s focus on fraud and holding individuals accountable and included this list of areas for near-term proposals:

“(1) adopting a regulatory IPO “on-ramp” that supplements the concept that Congress designed in the JOBS Act;

(2) expanding the existing accommodations that are currently available only for emerging and smaller companies to more businesses;

(3) providing nearly all public companies with an easier path to “shelf registration,” which allows them to access the public markets quickly and when market conditions are ideal; and

(4) giving companies the optionality for a quarterly or semiannual regulatory filing cadence.”

As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome!

SEC Announces 2025 Enforcement Results

On April 7, 2026, the SEC announced its enforcement results for fiscal year 2025.  In 2025, 456 enforcement actions were filed.  This included 303 standalone actions and 69 “follow-on” administrative proceedings seeking to bar or suspend individuals.  You can read more about these results and the Commission’s strategy to refocus enforcement resources to address situations that harm investors, including fraud and the persons who perpetrate fraud.

As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome!

SEC Comment Letter Posting News

At “The SEC Speaks in 2026,” a conference presented by PLI in cooperation with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, members of CorpFin announced that the comment letter posting process is about five months behind.  Thus, information about comment letter volume and frequent comment areas will likely not be complete until the posting process is up to date.  The staff did not provide an estimate of how long this would take.

As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome!

P.S., PLI provides a complimentary non-accredited live stream of The SEC Speaks, which you can find here.

C&DI’s Renamed as Corporation Finance Interpretations

Over the years we have blogged about the valuable guidance provided by CorpFin’s Compliance and Disclosure Interpretations (C&DIs).  We have even lightheartedly referred to them as the CorpFin “candy” dish.

CorpFin has renamed this section of their guidance as Corporation Finance Interpretations, a shorter and perhaps broader name.  There is still a consolidated, word searchable version of the interpretations.  And we are taking suggestions for fun ways to build a nickname for the now named “CFIs.”

As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome!

SEC Adopts Final Rules and Issues FAQs for the Holding Foreign Insiders Accountable Act

The Holding Foreign Insiders Accountable Act requires directors and officers of foreign private issuers to file Section 16 reports to disclose their share ownership and transactions.  This reporting requirement is effective as of March 18, 2026.  On February 27, 2026, the SEC adopted Final Rules to implement this requirement.  You can read more and find links to the Final Rules in this Press Release.

On March 9, 2026, CorpFin issued responses to a number of frequently asked questions (FAQs) about this new requirement.  The FAQs address issues including the requirement that all reports must be filed on EDGAR and various deadline details.

As a reminder, it is appropriate to obtain EDGAR IDs for all affected persons well in advance of the March 18, 2026, filing effective date.

As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome!

An Example from the SEC’s “Statistics and Data Visualizations” Webpage

As we discussed in this blog post, on August 13, 2025, the SEC published a new webpage that provides a wealth of information about capital market transactions, participants, activity and investors.  As an example, included in the data visualizations is this graph about IPOs:

Underlying the graph is a tabular presentation that further breaks down the underlying data.  The image below is a portion of this table:

As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome!

“Coming Attractions” from CorpFin

With SEC Chairman Paul Atkins’ remarks that it is “a new day at the SEC,” reporting companies and their advisors have been waiting to see exactly what this new day will entail.  Chair Atkins has delivered numerous speeches about his priorities, most recently in this “Testimony Before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs” on February 12, 2026, and his “Remarks at the Texas A&M School of Corporate Law Symposium” on February 17, 2026.

On February 13, 2026, CorpFin Division Director James Moloney published a Statement titled “Coming Attractions From the Division of Corporation Finance” to shed more light on the Division’s priorities.  His Statement addresses areas including crypto assets, Regulation S-K, semiannual reporting, FPI issues, updating staff guidance, the disclosure review process, and shareholder proposals.  Clearly, these new days will be busy days for both the Commission and reporting companies!

As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome!

More Updated C&DIs

On January 23, 2026, continuing its process of updating C&DIs, CorpFin announced three additional sets of revisions and withdrawals.  This first announcement addresses a number of C&DIs related to Securities Act issues, including delayed or continuous offerings and abandoned offerings.  A number of proxy and tender offer related issues are addressed in this second announcement.  CorpFin’s third announcement addresses executive compensation disclosures in a spin-off transaction setting.

As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.

A New Day at the SEC for Regulation S-K

On January 13, 2026, SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins issued a Statement titled “Statement on Reforming Regulation S-K.”  In his Statement Chairman Atkins notes:

“Over the past forty-plus years, that repository (Regulation S-K) has grown from the size of a gym locker to the size of an artificial-intelligence data center. Today, the disclosure that companies provide in response to the myriad requirements of Regulation S-K does not always reflect information that a reasonable investor would consider important in making an investment or voting decision.”

Chairman Atkins has instructed the Division of Corporation Finance to conduct a comprehensive review of the disclosure requirements in Regulation S-K.  The roundtable addressing executive compensation disclosure was a first step in this process.  The staff is now moving its focus to other Regulation S-K disclosure requirements and comments are requested by April 13, 2026.

The Statement includes information about how to submit comments electronically or in writing.

As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.