That was fast. Yesterday, in response to the Working Group recommendations from mid-week, SEC Chair Paul Atkins unveiled the launch of the Commission’s “Project Crypto” during a speech to the “America First Policy Institute.” The initiative directs the SEC’s policy divisions to work with the existing Crypto Task Force led by Commissioner Hester Peirce, to “swiftly” develop proposals to implement the Working Group recommendations. But it sounds like those in the crypto ecosphere will be able to break through previous roadblocks even before final rules are on the books:
In accord with the PWG Report’s recommendations, I have directed the Commission staff to draft clear and simple rules of the road for crypto asset distributions, custody, and trading for public notice and comment. While the Commission staff works to finalize these regulations, the Commission and its staff will in the coming months consider using interpretative, exemptive, and other authorities to make sure that archaic rules and regulations do not smother innovation and entrepreneurship in America.
Here’s more detail on what Chair Atkins is thinking for some aspects of the new regulatory framework:
I have directed the Commission staff to work to develop clear guidelines that market participants can use to determine whether a crypto asset is a security or subject to an investment contract. Our goal is to help market participants to slot crypto assets into categories, such as digital collectibles, digital commodities, or stablecoins, and assess the economic realities of a transaction. This approach can allow market participants to determine, based upon clear guidelines, whether any outstanding promises or commitments of the issuer cause the crypto asset to be subject to an investment contract.
In addition, it should not be a scarlet letter to be deemed a security. We need a regulatory framework for crypto asset securities that allows these products to flourish within American markets. Many issuers will prefer the flexibility in product design that the securities laws afford, and investors will benefit from the opportunity to earn distributions, voting rights, and other features typical of securities. Projects should not be forced to establish decentralized autonomous organizations and offshore foundations or decentralize too early if this is not their desired plan of action. I am excited to see new use cases for crypto asset securities in commerce, such as the ability to participate in blockchain network consensus with tokenized equities.
Thus, for those crypto asset transactions that are subject to the securities laws, I have asked staff to propose purpose-fit disclosures, exemptions, and safe harbors, including for so-called “initial coin offerings,” “airdrops,” and network rewards. Regarding these sorts of transactions, our goal should be that issuers no longer exclude Americans from their distributions to avoid legal complexity and lawsuits,[14] but instead choose to include Americans to enjoy legal certainty and an accommodating regulatory environment. It is my view that a Cambrian explosion in innovation could occur if we stay true to this course.
The speech also indicates that the Commission is open to working with companies that want to “tokenize” securities – and engage in other yet-to-be-known types of innovation:
While the Commission is actively considering industry requests that could jumpstart innovative activity, we are also contemplating an innovation exemption that would allow registrants and non-registrants to quickly go to market with new business models and services that do not neatly fit within our existing rules and regulations. The Commission will continue to ensure that market participants adhere to certain conditions and requirements designed to achieve the policy aims of the federal securities laws.
Under my vision for an innovation exemption, innovators and visionaries will be able to immediately enter the market with new technologies and business models but will not be required to comply with incompatible or burdensome prescriptive regulatory requirements that hinder productive economic activity. Instead, they will be able to comply with certain principles-based conditions designed to achieve the core policy aims of the federal securities laws. These conditions may include, for example, a commitment to make periodic reports to the Commission, incorporate whitelisting or “verified pool” functionality, and restrict tokenized securities that do not adhere to a token standard that incorporates compliance features, such as ERC3643.[22] I encourage market participants and SEC staff alike to have an eye towards commercial viability when contemplating what various models could look like.
In his speech, Chair Atkins analogized the current need for innovation to the one facing the SEC in the 1960s, when the market transitioned from paper stock certificates to electronic DTC entries. I do wonder whether that was as polarizing at the time as crypto is now. My guess is, probably! Whatever your views on the merits of crypto becoming mainstream, you can’t argue with the fact that the market appears to be poised for some big changes right now.
The question of what Congress will fund next year is still a very open one, since our lawmakers sprinted out of Washington before making much progress on the appropriations bills. Just the same, some of the early activity can give us a sense of what type of budget the SEC will be working with, and which enforcement and rulemaking priorities will get those precious dollars.
As Meredith blogged in June, the SEC had requested that its funding level not change from last year. It’s not too surprising to see that the current subcommittee version of the House appropriations bill would actually reduce the Commission’s funding by about 7% compared to last year. What may be more interesting is the laundry list of items that the bill would “defund” (i.e., the SEC wouldn’t be able to use the appropriated funds for these items):
– SEC. 527. None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to compel a private company to make a public offering under the Securities Act of 1933 by amending the ‘‘held of record’’ definition under section 12(g)(1) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
– SEC. 528. None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to implement any program that requires a national securities exchange, a national securities association, or a member of such an exchange or association to collect and provide personally identifiable information with respect to a retail market participant to meet the requirements relating to an order or a reportable event under section 242.613(c)(7) of title 17, Code of Federal Regulations, or any successor regulations thereof.
– SEC. 529. None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to review or approve the budget for the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) as described in 15 U.S.C. 7219, until the FASB withdraws the Accounting Standards Update on Income Tax Disclosures issued in December 2023 (No. 2023-09).
– SEC. 530. None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to develop, promulgate, finalize, implement, or enforce rulemaking that would, directly or indirectly, create new disclosure requirements under Regulation D or lower the amount of money an issuer can raise through Regulation D.
– SEC. 531. None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to implement or enforce the final rule entitled ‘‘Cybersecurity Risk Management, Strategy, Governance, and Incident Disclosure’’ (88 Fed. Reg. 51896 (August 4, 2023)).
The tax and cybersecurity disclosure restrictions are interesting, since some companies have been wondering whether they need to worry about these rules anymore under the current regime. For cyber, it’s worth remembering that even though Commissioners Peirce and Uyeda objected to the cybersecurity disclosure rules when they were adopted, it was in part because they believed the preexisting rules and guidance already required disclosure of material cybersecurity risks and incidents. That suggests we will still need to keep principles-based disclosures in mind for these issues. Plus, the laws are still on the books (for now) and enforcement could resume after a regime change. All that said, it does seem that when it comes to obsessing over the finest, most technical disclosure points, we may get a little breathing room for the time being – especially if the spending prohibition makes it into the final appropriations bill.
A new report from Cornerstone Research shows that securities class action filing activity has held steady for the first half of this year – but the dollar values are higher and “AI washing” is showing up in more claims. Here are a few other takeaways:
– 12 cases filed in the first half of 2025 related to artificial intelligence disclosures, putting this category on track to surpass the 2024 yearly total of 15.
– Cryptocurrency-related filings are poised to increase, while COVID-19-related filings are on pace to decline sharply.
– The annualized number of SPAC-related filings is on pace to nearly match that of 2024.
– The number of filings in the Consumer Non-Cyclical sector increased by 31% in 2025 H1 relative to 2024 H2, largely driven by a surge in Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical filings.
– Mega filings accounted for the vast majority of total MDL and total DDL (91% and 83%, respectively), significantly above the 1997–2024 semiannual averages.
– The count of mega DDL filings (15) in 2025 H1 was three times the 1997–2024 semiannual average (five) and between the number of mega DDL filings in 2024 H2 (17) and 2024 H1 (10).
A report from NERA Economic Consulting reached similar conclusions, while also showing that plaintiffs remain interested in “bread & butter” claims. Here’s more detail on that one:
– A total of 108 new federal securities class action suits were filed in the first half of 2025. The bulk of these (99 cases) were standard cases containing alleged violations of Rule 10b-5, Section 11, and/or Section 12. If this pace continues, 2025 will see approximately 216 cases, a slight decline from 2024 levels.
– The electronic technology and technology services and the health technology and services sectors together accounted for 59% of filings. However, suits in the finance sector declined to 7%.
– A significant number of standard case filings included allegations related to missed earnings guidance (44%) and allegations related to misled future performance (33%).
Yesterday, the “President’s Working Group on Digital Asset Markets” – which was established by Executive Order back in January – released a 166-page, multi-agency report that is intended to provide a framework for regulatory oversight and allow more people to access “digital asset markets.”
Page 44 of the report summarizes in a handy bullet-point list all of the actions the SEC and CFTC have already taken this year on crypto issues. In addition to recommending that Congress pass legislation for a crypto regulatory framework, which would build on the legislation that was recently adopted for stablecoins, the working group recommends that the agencies coordinate together and do even more. For example, for the SEC, the report recommends that it consider using its rulemaking & exemptive authority to:
• Establish a fit-for-purpose exemption from registration under Section 5 of the Securities Act for securities distributions involving digital assets.
• Establish a time-limited safe harbor or exemption from certain securities law requirements for transactions involving digital assets that may be subject to an investment contract because they are not yet fully functional or associated with a sufficiently decentralized network to allow for progressive functionality or decentralization.
• Establish a safe harbor for certain airdrops from characterization as “sales” under Section 2(a)(3) of the Securities Act or an exemption from the corresponding registration requirements under Section 5 of the Securities Act. Consider also an exemption for distributions of digital assets by decentralized physical infrastructure (DePIN) providers in securities transactions for purposes of rewarding participation in DePIN networks, as well as distributions of certain offerings.
The report also envisions a tailored disclosure regime for digital asset issuers:
Issuers of digital asset securities, and of securities involving digital assets, should be subject to disclosure requirements that are appropriately tailored to address the novel characteristics of digital assets and blockchain technology. Digital asset trading platforms, brokers, dealers, and other CFTC registered intermediaries that make available non-security digital assets should be required to disclose any such information that the CFTC determines to be appropriate for non-security digital assets.
Further, these parties should not be subject to ongoing disclosure requirements other than those required by Congress in future legislation or by the relevant market regulator. Furthermore, any such ongoing disclosures should be fit-for-purpose and guided by publicly available information, such as open-source code, whenever possible.
The report’s other themes are summarized in this fact sheet, and SEC Chair Paul Atkins issued this statement applauding the recommendations. Buckle up!
The bitcoin treasury strategy pioneered by billionaire Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy, which now calls itself Strategy, remains dominant: more than 70 public companies around the world currently hold over $67 billion worth of the asset. But the sheer velocity of capital deployment for crypto treasuries at large is jaw-dropping. Since April, more than 30 public companies have announced plans to adopt similar strategies, targeting about $19 billion in capital raises, according to Elliot Chun of Architect Partners, a Palo Alto-based financial advisory firm.
That’s from a Forbes article published earlier this month – so the number is higher now, and it’s hard to visit any news site that is even tangentially related to business or finance and not run into an article about the “crypto treasury” craze. (I say “crypto” here because in the time since that Forbes article was written, there have been deals that focused on currencies other than bitcoin.) This newsletter from Bloomberg’s Matt Levine explains how the “path to public” for the crypto entrepreneurs involves – what else? – SPACs:
…we talk a lot around here about small public companies that get gobbled up by crypto entrepreneurs so they can pivot to being crypto treasury companies. But this is inefficient and haphazard: If you want to take a pot of crypto public on the stock exchange, why should you have to find some defunct public biotech company, negotiate with its executives, strike a deal, lay off the biotech researchers, etc.? Why shouldn’t an investment bank just be in the business of supplying pristine public listings, so instead of pivoting some biotech/toy/liquor/whatever company to crypto, you can just start with a blank slate?
Of course banks are in this business. This business — the business of supplying a publicly listed shell company — is the SPAC business (special purpose acquisition companies).
If you’re working on these deals, you may be having déjà vu from the SPAC heyday. Lucky you! Of course, there may be a couple differences this time around. For one, you’ll need to consider the SPAC disclosure rules that went into effect last summer – with the aim to make SPAC/de-SPAC deals more akin to traditional IPOs. But there are a couple of potentially mitigating factors there:
– Some deal teams had baked in some of these requirements already as a matter of practice.
– SEC leadership has changed! I haven’t heard too much specifically on how the Staff proceeds on SPAC-related reviews under the new regime, but with the crypto angle, it wouldn’t be surprising if this falls under the directive in yesterday’s Working Group Report to encourage SEC registrants to “engage in innovative new business models.”
The other thing that adds new wrinkles is that for many of the “crypto treasury” companies, in addition to not being a traditional business in the first place, this isn’t a buy & hold strategy for the crypto. This Bloomberg article explains how the new players are “chasing yield.” That sounds complicated to explain to some investors and various regulators – maybe even to some of the company’s directors! The companies are including a whole new category of risk factors, which I imagine were fun for the first few trailblazers to draft and continue to require careful reading for each company’s circumstances.
Lastly, some people are questioning how long the “crypto treasury / SPAC” play can last. “How is the market not already saturated?” I am not sure whether that’s a distinguishing feature of this new twist, or something that makes it just like the last round, where very similar questions seemed to spark a level of FOMO that only prolonged the trend.
If today’s crypto theme isn’t your cup of tea, I’ll leave you with this recent post from our colleague Meaghan Nelson on The Mentor Blog:
David Hamm, Former SVP, Deputy GC at Summit Materials, is back at it offering insightful and free content on LinkedIn—this time in article form: “Practical Wisdom for Getting Board Support Right.”
His article highlights the crux of supporting the board: “For legal professionals and corporate leaders alike, doing it well means more than just checking boxes—it means building trust, anticipating needs, and mastering a rhythm that allows your board to focus on the business, not the process.”
David offers tips in the following areas:
Calendar planning
Agenda management
Preparing board materials
Meeting execution
Managing post-meeting tasks and deliverables
And more
In addition to everything that David mentions, you also have to be thoughtful about meeting your board’s expectations where they are. If you’re a GC/Corporate Secretary at a startup or even a later tech company, for example, you’ll likely be servicing a much more casual, tech-savvy board and so you need to avoid being overly process-oriented. On the flip side, if you’re the Corporate Secretary or assisting that function and your company is public and has been around for decades, you might have a more formal board dynamic and board members that would balk at an online board portal or digital D&O questionnaires.
A key part of being a thoughtful corporate secretary is reading the room and adjusting to your company’s board members so they can “focus on the business, not the process”.
For more practical tips related to the corporate secretarial function, check out our recently updated Corporate Secretary’s Department Handbook, which is part of our In-House Essentials Treatise.
For intel on supporting your board through today’s latest issues, make sure to register for our “Proxy Disclosure & 22nd Annual Executive Compensation Conferences.” One of our sessions covers “Your 2026 Board Agenda” – Kirkland’s Pippa Bond, KPMG’s Rani Doyle, and Cooley’s Brad Goldberg will be discussing perennial and emerging issues boards need to focus on right now and suggestions to improve understanding and oversight – so you are not leaving major risks to chance. Email us at info@ccrcorp.com or call us at 800-737-1271 today to reserve your seat. You can also register online.
Last week, Staff from the SEC’s Division of Economic and Risk Analysis posted this reminder about double checking XBRL tags on “public float” figures. Here’s an excerpt:
Staff recently conducted an assessment on the public float data in Forms 10-K for the fiscal year ending in 2024. Staff has continued to observe scaling errors in certain filings. For example, one filer reported a public float of $78 million in its HTML filing, but reported a public float of $78 in its XBRL data. Staff also observed inconsistencies in the date information between the HTML filing and the tagged data. For example, certain filers disclosed the public float date in the HTML filing as the last business day of the most recently completed second fiscal quarter but tagged the public float value with the fiscal year end date.
Filers should carefully review their public float data to ensure accuracy and consistency. For more data quality reminders, see Staff Observations and Guidance.
This reminder might look familiar to folks who regularly read this blog or track Staff announcements – I blogged about DERA’s prior notice on this specific public float issue several years ago, and a sample comment letter from Corp Fin that raised the broader issue of scale in XBRL tags. And we’ve blogged about other aspects of XBRL requirements (too) many times.
This latest announcement is a good reminder that while disclosure lawyers may not be on the front lines of the tagging process, it’s worth getting slightly outside your lane here – since the QA is apparently falling through the cracks for some companies. We have a very helpful checklist for members that identifies all of the disclosures that are required to be tagged in various forms. If you aren’t already a member with access to that resource (and many others), make sure to sign up today by calling 800.737.1271, emailing info@ccrcorp.com, or visiting our membership center.
Glass Lewis has launched its annual policy survey – joining ISS, which Dave blogged about last week. The survey is geared towards investors – since that’s the customer base for the proxy advisor – but it’s open to anyone willing to spend 45 minutes of their time. Glass Lewis’s announcement gives this additional color:
The goal of this survey is to inform Glass Lewis’ policy development along with our processes and understanding of the governance landscape by gathering a wide range of perspectives. The topics included should be relevant to all parties involved in corporate governance. However, some of the questions are directly related to proxy voting, and their phrasing reflects Glass Lewis’ role supporting investors in their proxy voting and broader stewardship work, as well as our understanding of investor expectations.
We have indicated where questions may not be applicable to non-investors, but nonetheless welcome their perspective on these topics. In addition, we have indicated where questions are relevant to specific markets.
The survey should be understood in the context of Glass Lewis’ approach to proxy research, which combines broad initial filters, used to identify outliers based on market best practices and investor expectations, with nuanced, case-by-case analysis. We do not employ (nor does this survey seek to establish) one-size-fits-all rules in determining ultimate vote recommendations – every recommendation reflects the company’s unique circumstances.
Responses will be accepted until 5pm PT on September 15th.
Here’s something Meredith wrote yesterday on The Proxy Season Blog: Last week, Dave shared that Glass Lewis is taking legal action following the enactment of Senate Bill 2337, which he blogged about back in June. We now know that ISS filed a lawsuit the same day. This alert from Meridian Compensation Partners has more on the challenges:
Glass Lewis and ISS allege the Texas law is unconstitutional by violating their First Amendment right to advise clients even if the state does not agree with the advice.
In addition, both proxy advisors claim that the Texas law will (i) impose significant costs on their business and (ii) require the firms to provide misleading warnings to their clients that their proxy advice was against their clients’ financial interests. Glass Lewis further claims that the law exposes its clients to the risk of unwarranted litigation by private parties and the Texas Attorney General. Moreover, ISS alleges the law is designed to protect corporate directors and will harm shareholders whose votes are an “important check and balance” against boards.
Meridian expects the Texas court will rule on the cases before the law takes effect in September.
After reading over the weekend that DOGE is using an AI tool to identify thousands of rules that could be ripe for elimination, it struck me that the government is really serious about this “deregulation” thing. While DOGE’s presentation about the tool doesn’t call out the SEC as a case study, it does say there’s a September 1st goal for all agencies to complete the “DOGE AI Deregulation List.” The overall goal, according to DOGE, is to delete 50% of all federal regulations.
At this point, we can only speculate what might be on the “delete list” at the SEC. My crystal ball says there could be a couple executive compensation disclosure rules – but we don’t yet have a Reg Flex agenda that shows Chair Atkins’ top priorities.
What do the tea leaves say? In addition to recent PCAOB changes, Matt Kelly at Radical Compliance pointed out that a recent GAO report about the money companies are spending to comply with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act could be laying the groundwork for reform of that statute. The GAO analysis found what everybody already knows, which is that:
Larger (nonexempt) companies generally incurred higher overall Sarbanes-Oxley compliance costs, but these costs were proportionally more burdensome for smaller (exempt) companies. Nonexempt companies (generally those with $75 million or more in publicly held shares or companies not qualifying as emerging growth companies) had higher costs (19 percent) than their exempt counterparts, according to GAO’s analysis of a nongeneralizable sample of 96 companies.
Companies generally experienced increased audit costs when they transitioned from exempt to nonexempt status (became subject to auditor attestation because their public float or revenues grew above exemption thresholds). Audits of nonexempt companies involve more work because the incremental auditing standards that apply to them require more planning, control testing, and quality review. GAO’s analysis found a median increase of $219,000 (13 percent) in audit fees in the year a company became nonexempt. Audit fees generally leveled off in the year after transition.
Some aspects of Sarbanes-Oxley could be easy to refine. As John recently shared, the Society for Corporate Governance had suggested improvements to auditor attestation requirements as part of its recent comment letter on filer status & scaled disclosure, which would make things easier for some smaller companies.
As Matt highlights on his blog, the cost savings from a dramatic overhaul are less certain. The GAO report also cites a correlation between weak internal controls and intentionally misleading reports – and we know that even in this deregulatory environment, the SEC is still very interested in preventing and punishing fraud.
