Securities Regulation Daily Wrap Up, REGULATION TRACKER—Upcoming SEC and CFTC comment deadlines and effective dates, (Dec 27, 2017)

For Proposed Rules Comment Calendars and tables of Final Rule Effective Dates, please consult the Securities Regulation Daily SEC and CFTC Regulation Trackers. Recent activity includes the following:

Agency regulatory agendas. The updated regulatory agendas of the SEC and the CFTC have been released as part of the Unified Agenda maintained by the Office of Management and Budget Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. OIRA reports that across government agencies there are plans to finalize three deregulatory actions for every new regulatory action in fiscal year 2018. Agencies reportedly withdrew or delayed 1579 planned regulatory actions from fall 2016 to fall 2017.

Fund holdings. On December 8, the SEC postponed for nine months a requirement that large registered investment companies begin filing information about their monthly portfolio holdings in order to provide more time for an upgrade to the EDGAR system. Given the sensitive nature of the information, and Chairman Jay Clayton’s directive to improve the SEC’s cybersecurity systems and controls, the SEC adopted a temporary final rule to modify the Form N-PORT filing requirements. The larger fund groups must now submit their reports on EDGAR by April 30, 2019, and smaller fund groups will retain the one year delay in their start date and submit their reports by April 2020.

Consolidated Audit Trail. On November 15, 2016, the SEC voted unanimously to approve a proposed national market system plan to create, implement, and maintain a consolidated audit trail for trade and order data that will allow regulators to track all activity throughout the U.S. markets in NMS securities. Chairman Clayton denied a request from participants to delay the start of reporting to the central repository, meaning reporting requirements kicked in on November 15, 2017. The national securities exchanges and national securities associations working with the SEC on the plan have created the following website to keep market participants informed: http://www.catnmsplan.com/.

Regulation S-K modernization. On October 11, at his first open meeting as chairman, Jay Clayton said a new SEC proposal to modernize and simplify disclosure requirements under Regulation S-K will reduce the burdens on issuers while providing investors with the information they need to make informed decisions. He noted that the proposal includes improvements in all of the areas in which the November 23, 2016, FAST Act report recommended action. Among other things the proposal seeks comment on amendments to Management’s Discussion & Analysis and to the confidential treatment process for commercially sensitive information.

FOIA updates. The SEC is seeking comment on proposed amendments to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) regulations. The amendments would reflect changes required by the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016 and update and clarify other procedural provisions.

Please see the SEC Regulation Tracker and the CFTC Regulation Tracker for information on proposal comment deadlines and final rule compliance dates.

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