On November 15, the House Financial Services Committee approved 23 bills, which included various bills that facilitate capital formation and reduce certain regulatory requirements.Chairman of the Committee, Jeb Hensarling, stated that these bills "...will provide smaller businesses with greater access to the capital markets so those businesses can grow and create jobs." The following were included among the approved bills:
- H.R. 4263, the Regulation A+ Improvement Act, which proposes to increase the amount that companies can offer and sell under SEC Regulation A, Tier II, from $50 million to $75 million. The bill passed 37-23.
- H.R. 4015, the Corporate Governance Reform and Transparency Act of 2017, which provides for the registration of proxy advisory firms with the SEC, disclosure of proxy firms' potential conflicts of interest and codes of ethics, and the disclosure of proxy firms' methodologies for formulating proxy recommendations and analyses. The bill passed 40-20.
- H.R. 4248, which proposes to repeal Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act, and would require public companies to disclose in annual reports filed with the SEC whether the company sources "conflict minerals" from the Democratic Republic of Congo and its nine neighboring countries. The bill passed 32-27.
- H.R. 4267, the Small Business Credit Availability Act, which proposes to amend the Investment Company Act of 1940 in order to require the SEC to streamline the offering, filing, and registration processes for BDCs. The bill also increases a BDCs' ability to deploy capital to businesses by reducing its asset coverage ratio-or required ratio of assets to debt-from 200% to 150% if certain requirements are met. The bill passed 58-2.
- H.R. 4279, the Expanding Investment Opportunities Act, which directs the SEC to amend its rules to enable closed-end funds that meet certain requirements to be considered "well-known seasoned issuers" (WKSIs) and to conform the filing and offering regulations for closed-end funds to those of traditional operating companies. The bill passed 58-2.
- H.R. 4281, the Expanding Access to Capital for Rural Job Creators Act, which proposes to amend the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to have the SEC's Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation identify any unique challenges to rural area small businesses when identifying problems that small businesses have with securing access to capital. H.R. 4281 also requires that the annual report made by the SEC's Small Business Advocate include a summary of any unique issues encountered by rural area small businesses. The bill passed 60-0.
Because of the generality of this update, the information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations.
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