Securities Regulation Daily Wrap Up, INVESTMENT ADVISERS—SEC, CFTC approve extension of Form PF compliance deadline to Oct. 1, 2026, (Sep 17, 2025)

By Suzanne Cosgrove

The regulators said the extension will provide them with time to complete a substantive review of Form PF, in accordance with a recent Presidential Memorandum, and allow for possible changes.

The SEC and CFTC have jointly approved an extension of the deadline for investment advisers to comply with amendments to Form PF, the confidential reporting form used by certain private fund advisers, moving the compliance date out by a year to Oct. 1, 2026 (Form PF; Reporting Requirements for All Filers and Large Hedge Fund Advisers; Further Extension of Compliance Date, Investment Advisers Act Release No. 6919 (Sept. 17, 2025)).

Form PF is required for certain SEC-registered investment advisers to private funds, including those that also are registered with the CFTC as a commodity pool operator (CPO) or a commodity trading adviser (CTA). The Form PF amendments were adopted in February 2024, with an original compliance date of March 12, 2025. The action taken by the agencies on Wednesday was a third extension of the compliance date for the amendments.

According to a release by the Commissions, the further extension will provide the SEC and CFTC with time to complete a substantive review of Form PF in accordance with a Presidential Memorandum and take any further appropriate actions, which may include proposing new Form PF amendments.

SEC chair comments. In opening remarks delivered Wednesday ahead of the SEC commissioners’ vote on the extension, Commission Chairman Paul Atkins noted Form PF data is provided to the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) to enable it to assess systemic risk and, as part of that process, to better understand market developments and respond more effectively in periods of stress or during a crisis.

“The Commissions, therefore, do not just collect this information to fulfill their respective regulatory mandates,” he said.

On January 20, 2025, President Trump signed a Presidential Memorandum directing agencies to consider postponing (for 60 days from the date of the Memorandum) the effective date of rules that had not yet taken effect, for the purpose of reviewing any questions of fact, law, and policy that they may raise.

The memorandum also ordered agencies to consider delays beyond 60 days, if necessary for further review, and to take appropriate action where warranted.

“At the SEC, for example, I have directed the Division of Investment Management to consider whether we can reduce the number of advisers required to file the form without meaningfully reducing the key risk and exposure information needed by the Commissions and by the other FSOC member agencies,” Atkins said.

Repeal by extension. SEC Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw, the lone Democrat on the Commission, objected to the extension and said she did not support it. “This is a thinly veiled sleight of hand to dismantle the work of a prior Commission while weaseling out of the clear requirements of well-established law,” Crenshaw said.

“Today’s release further suggests that we are delaying the recent amendments, collectively ‘Final Form PF,’ yet again to buy ourselves more time to write them out of existence – before they ever go into effect.

“We clearly have not been dissuaded from our desire to slowly but surely extinguish duly adopted amendments to Form PF via extension after extension – after extension – despite the command of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) to engage in transparent notice and comment rulemaking when rescinding rules,” she said.

“We also fail, yet again, to seek public comment on a potential path forward, further demonstrating our willingness to conduct Commission action without public input. This approach calls into question the legitimacy of each of these Commission actions and defies clear directives from the APA and the courts.”

Time to fix the form. Taking the opposite view, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce applauded the proposed compliance delay. “I welcome today’s action as evidence of a commitment to conduct a substantive review of Form PF,” she said.

“As I noted in my dissent to the adoption of the amendments we are extending, ‘Form PF has not-so-subtly morphed into an all-purpose means to gather information from the private market under the seemingly limitless rubric of systemic risk,’” she added.

“The less confidential information we collect, the less we have to protect,” Peirce said. “My only question is why we are not proposing a longer delay.”

This is Investment Advisers Act Release No. 6919.

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