The SEC’s Office of the Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation will host the 45th Annual Small Business Forum from 1:00 to 5:00 pm ET on March 9 at the SEC’s Headquarters (plus a live webcast). Registration information and the full agenda will be available soon. As the announcement notes, “What makes the Forum unique is the opportunity for the public to suggest and prioritize capital-raising policy recommendations that will be delivered to Congress.” The Q&A about the event explains:
What is the Forum? The Forum is an annual event that brings together members of the public and private sectors—including entrepreneurs, small business leaders, investors, and those that support them across the small business ecosystem—to discuss and provide suggestions to improve securities policy affecting how companies raise capital from investors.
The Forum culminates in policy recomendations. How do audience members participate? We invite all participants to provide policy recommendations in advance of the live event. The event culminates with an opportunity for all participants – whether attending in person or virtually – to vote to prioritize the submitted recommendations. The top recommendations are published in a report that the SEC delivers to Congress.
If ever there was a year to submit your thoughts, this is it! Filer status and capital formation are on the Commission’s rulemaking agenda, and SEC Staff members have reiterated the current “open door policy” at every speaking event. It seems pretty clear that public input is welcome, even outside these more formal opportunities. So, here’s how to do that:
Please submit your policy recommendations in advance by emailing them to smallbusiness@sec.gov by 12:00 p.m. ET March 5. Voting will open at the end of the event and remain open until 9:00 p.m. ET on March 9.
Maybe I’m dating myself with this reference. There’s certainly no dearth of movies about AI turning against humans. (I’m not talking about yesterday’s SaaS-stock-pocalypse). If you’re looking to do a thematic movie marathon, here’s a list from IMDB. Some are even kid-friendly, like Mitchells vs. the Machines (a household favorite). But also at this point, why bother? You could just read the news! I’m talking about Moltbook, of course. ICYMI (do you live under a rock?), it’s a new social network where chatbots, and solely chatbots, are having free-form conversations. (Reddit for AI?) The NYT reports:
The chatty bots became the talk of Silicon Valley and an elaborate Rorschach test for belief in the current state of A.I. According to countless posts on the internet and myriad interviews with The New York Times, many saw a technology that could make their lives easier. Others saw more of the A.I. slop that has been filling the internet in recent months. And some saw the early signs of bots conspiring against their creators.
On that last note, we’ve seen that before. Over the summer, Anthropic issued a report on “Agentic misalignment.” It detailed a simulation that resulted in an AI system blackmailing a company manager, which John has coined the “Hal 9000 problem” on the AI Counsel blog.
This risk is not lost on AI company CEOs. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei just published an essay about the “risks of powerful AI.” He also opens with one of my favorite movies, Contact.
[T]he main character, an astronomer who has detected the first radio signal from an alien civilization, is being considered for the role of humanity’s representative to meet the aliens. The international panel interviewing her asks, “If you could ask [the aliens] just one question, what would it be?” Her reply is: “I’d ask them, ‘How did you do it? How did you evolve, how did you survive this technological adolescence without destroying yourself?” When I think about where humanity is now with AI—about what we’re on the cusp of—my mind keeps going back to that scene [. . .] I believe we are entering a rite of passage, both turbulent and inevitable, which will test who we are as a species. Humanity is about to be handed almost unimaginable power, and it is deeply unclear whether our social, political, and technological systems possess the maturity to wield it.
Yikes! (This is the point where you say, aren’t I reading a securities law blog?) Well, as this is happening, the business news is abuzz about not just two but three AI unicorns racing to IPOs, and I can’t wait to see the disclosures. Specifically, I’ve been wondering (probably because of Matt Levine writing about AI catastrophe bonds) whether the “our AI might destroy humanity” risk might appear in the IPO prospectuses.
Like Matt Levine, I’m being a little tongue-in-cheek here. I mean, the point of risk factors is to describe what makes an investment speculative or risky and to protect the company against lawsuits. “Investment” risk assumes investment is still a thing we can all do, plus who could sue in an AI extinction scenario? How our brokerage accounts or 401ks are performing will be the least of our worries. On the other hand, this is the worst risk, and also something that the CEOs of all of these companies have publicly speculated about, so it would also seem strange if “AI could transform the world for better” isn’t balanced with “AI could also end the world.”
I did spend 5 minutes running a few pretty ridiculous keyword searches on EDGAR, and found some disclosures that “some AI scenarios present ethical issues or may have broad impacts on society,” which is then connected to reputational harm. I guess the idea is “If customers or investors perceive that our AI might destroy humanity, you might lose some or all of your investment.” And I guess that’s the right answer. Of course, it’s written like this:
If we enable or offer AI solutions that are controversial because of their purported or actual impact on human rights, privacy, employment or other social issues, we may experience reputational harm.
OR
Some uses of AI will present ethical issues and may have broad effects on society. In order to implement AI responsibly and minimize unintended harmful effects, we have already devoted and will continue to invest significant resources to develop, test, and maintain our products and services, but we may not be able to identify or resolve all AI-related issues, deficiencies, and/or failures before they arise. Unintended consequences, uses, or customization of our AI tools and systems may negatively affect human rights, privacy, employment, or other social concerns, which may result in claims, lawsuits, brand or reputational harm, and increased regulatory scrutiny, any of which could harm our business, financial condition, and operating results.
Will the pure-play AI unicorns come up with a new way to say this? I hope so.
Officers and directors of foreign private issuers will become subject to Section 16(a)’s reporting requirements on March 18. Ten percent owners were notably not covered by the SEC’s announcement, and not everyone is happy about this. As noted last week on Alan Dye’s Section16.net blog, the three scholars whose 2022 research paper led to the enactment of the Holding Foreign Insiders Accountable Act have filed a rulemaking petition asking the SEC to adopt rules implementing the Act before the mandatory compliance deadline. Here’s more from the blog:
While the Act’s rescission of the Section 16(a) exemption for (certain) insiders of foreign private issuers becomes effective on March 18 regardless of whether the SEC adopts implementing rules, the petition states that the SEC should clarify the scope of the Act by extending 16(a) to ten percent owners as well as directors and officers (which the petition says is at least implicitly mandated by the Act).
The petition also asks the SEC to (1) make clear that Section 16(a) applies to an FPI’s directors by deputization and (2) focus FPIs on the definition of “officer” so they don’t develop underinclusive lists based on the law or customs of the FPI’s home jurisdiction.
The petition also recommends that, when considering whether to exempt insiders from Section 16(a) because their home jurisdiction imposes substantially similar reporting requirements, the SEC take into account (1) whether the foreign jurisdiction imposes a filing deadline comparable to the two-business-day deadline for Form 4, (2) whether filings are made in English, and (3) whether filings are made electronically, allowing easy access by other investors.
And don’t forget to join today’s webcast “Alan Dye on the Latest Section 16 Developments” at 1:30 pm ET. Section16.net members are able to attend this critical webcast at no charge. The webcast cost for non-members is $975. If you’re not yet a member, sign up now by sending us an email at info@ccrcorp.com — or calling us at 800.737.1271.
Fiscal 2025 was an outlier year for SEC enforcement. Activity dropped, according to White & Case, to its lowest levels in a decade, owing to several trends (e.g., staffing, the fall 2025 shutdown, and expanded requirements for Commission approval), some of which are continuing into fiscal 2026. It’s probably also due in part to the SEC’s “back to basics” enforcement approach to pursue “those who lie, cheat, and steal.” While that probably means we won’t see the “gotcha” type enforcement actions that really scare financial reporting professionals (like ones premised on allegedly deficient disclosure controls with no related disclosure violation), that doesn’t mean we won’t see disclosure cases continue to be brought by the current Enforcement Staff or that every accounting case will be based on claims as clear cut as fabricating revenue.
Just last week, the SEC announced settled charges against Archer-Daniels-Midland Company (ADM) and certain former executives for materially inflating the performance of a key business segment. This seems like a classic earnings management case (albeit one involving intersegment adjustments), so no surprise that this would still be in the crosshairs. But there’s more to take away from the settlement. Since it was announced during Northwestern Pritzker School of Law’s Securities Regulation Institute, the enforcement panels had a recent case to discuss, and I benefited from their wisdom.
During the “SEC Enforcement and Investigations” panel, Davis Polk’s Fuad Rana described the charges as involving real accounting issues that require judgment, noting that this was the first time this administration has pursued an accounting theory that wasn’t fabricating revenue or hiding expenses, and it still brought a scienter-based fraud charge. (ADM had restated its financials, and a criminal investigation had been opened, but closed with no charges.) He also said it was unclear what benefits the company derived from cooperation and remediation. It still received the highest charge and a penalty, although its penalty might have been lower than it would have been in the absence of the cooperation and remediation. He acknowledged there was a focus on individual accountability, but said this settlement looked similar to past accounting cases.
As John shared a few years ago, discussions about “meeting analysts’ expectations” and “making our numbers” should raise a big red flag for anyone who hears them. In the moment, they may be mis- (or accurately) interpreted as encouragement to improperly get creative with numbers, and even if they don’t, might at least give that impression if later viewed by a regulator or private litigant.
Continuing on the enforcement theme, there was more to share from the “SEC Enforcement and Investigations” panel at SRI. Goodwin’s Jonathan Hecht stressed during the panel that, while SEC leadership has focused on overt misconduct in speeches and statements, there are factors that keep less egregious disclosure cases in the SEC’s crosshairs (even when negligence is involved rather than knowing or reckless fraud). Specifically:
– The SEC is focused on individual accountability and measurable investor harm, both of which are implicated in disclosure cases. Senior executives are directly involved. They speak on earnings calls and have to certify SEC filings, so the risk of individual accountability and liability is high.
– The SEC perceives investor harm as acute when disclosures are at issue because they can point to the market reaction when corrective disclosures are made. That gives measurable materility of the investor harm (that could be addressed by a fair fund) from the misstatement or omission.
The speakers called out the life sciences space as an area that continues to be ripe for enforcement. For example, near the end of last month, the SEC settled proceedings against former executives of biopharmaceutical company Spero Therapeutics for omissions and mischaracterizations of the FDA’s communications regarding the efficacy of the company’s lead drug candidate that misled investors. As this Foley blog highlights, this case notably involved non-scienter-based charges, despite the factual allegations, that were only brought against individuals.
Needless to say, it behooves all securities lawyers to continue reading their clients’ disclosures with healthy skepticism and an eye for consistency. Now, I know no one’s going to reduce the rigor around their financial reporting process just because SEC leadership says it’s focused on lying, cheating and stealing, but it seems worth reiterating because everyone’s paying close attention to rapidly evolving areas like AI, where everything’s new and shiny and moving a mile a minute — and disclosure controls may be struggling to keep up.
We’ve posted the transcript from our recent webcast – “ISS Policy Updates and Key Issues for 2026.” ISS’s Marc Goldstein provided a recap of what transpired during the 2025 proxy season, discussed the proxy advisor’s recent policy updates and shared thoughts on some issues companies will face in the 2026 proxy season. Davis Polk’s Ning Chiu & Jasper Street Partners’ Rob Main joined the dialogue with Marc and shared their key themes for 2025 and tips for navigating 2026. They discussed:
– The factors driving director opposition
– When ISS might support a DExit proposal
– The change to ISS’s policy regarding responsiveness when support for Say-on-Pay was low the prior year
– The expected impact of the change from three to five years in part of ISS’s quantitative evaluation of a company’s pay program
– When ISS considers security spend levels to be an “outlier” and the supporting disclosure the proxy advisor looks for
– ISS’s case-by-case approach to E&S proposals
– Thoughts on popular governance proposal topics
– ISS’s FAQ on the omission of a shareholder proposal in the absence of no-action relief
– Plans to continue its benchmark policy
Members of TheCorporateCounsel.net can access the transcript of this program. If you are not a member, email info@ccrcorp.com to sign up today and get access to the full transcript – or call us at 800.737.1271.
Although Friday brought news of a funding deal and suggestions that the current shutdown isn’t *supposed to* continue past today or tomorrow, Corp Fin Staff posted pre-shutdown guidance late Friday afternoon. (The Staff has to wait for the green light from elsewhere in the government to be able to post that guidance.)
In terms of how this guidance compares to the last shutdown:
– It continues to reflect the helpful update Corp Fin released a week into the last shutdown regarding reliance on Rule 430A to omit your offering price when filing a registration statement that would become effective after 20 days pursuant to Section 8(a).
– It now addresses another pain point from the last shutdown relating to upsizing an offering using Rule 462(b). New Q&A 13 says:
Q: Can I rely on Rule 462(b) to file a registration statement that becomes effective upon filing to register additional securities of the same class(es) as were included in an earlier registration statement for the same offering if the earlier registration statement went effective by operation of law pursuant to Section 8(a) of the Securities Act?
A: Because the staff will not be available to review or accelerate the effectiveness of registration statements during the shutdown, as long as the other conditions of Rule 462(b) are met, we will not recommend enforcement action to the Commission if a company relies on Rule 462(b) when the earlier registration statement went effective by operation of law due to staff being unavailable to review or accelerate effectiveness during the shutdown.
– It also formalizes guidance that the Staff had informally shared earlier last week — that it was willing to accelerate registration statement effectiveness for IPO issuers that had cleared comments and flipped public but were still waiting for the 15 days to run if they requested effectiveness as of 4 pm ET or later on Friday, January 30, prior to the shutdown. New Q&A 8 reads:
Q: I originally submitted a draft registration statement for confidential review and subsequently filed the registration statement, and all non-public draft submissions, publicly. The 15-day waiting period referenced in Section 6(e)(1) of the Securities Act and the Division’s Enhanced Accommodations for Issuers Submitting Draft Registration Statements (March 3, 2025) will not expire prior to the shutdown. Will the Division consider an acceleration request?
A: Yes, if the company has publicly filed the registration statement and all non-public draft submissions, the Division will consider a request for acceleration as long as (1) there are no outstanding staff comments on the registration statement, (2) the company requests acceleration of effectiveness as of 4:00 p.m. or later on the final business day (Friday, January 30, 2026) prior to the shutdown, and (3) the company represents in its request for acceleration that it will not commence a road show or, in the absence of a road show, conduct any sales, until at least 15 days after it filed the registration statement publicly. A company considering this option should submit its acceleration request as soon as possible.
Hopefully, to the extent this was relevant to issuers, their counsel was in contact with the Staff before this guidance came out or was able to move quickly once it went live. While it seems this opportunity has expired, it’s something to keep in mind for the next shutdown. It’s also yet another example of Corp Fin Staff’s willingness to make reasonable accommodations so deals can get across the finish line despite shutdown roadblocks. (And evidence, more generally, of the Staff continuing to show its commitment to facilitating capital formation.)
* Senate Democrats and the White House reached an agreement late last week to fund most of the federal government until September 30 and fund the Department of Homeland Security for 2 weeks while discussions continue on immigration enforcement. Appropriations still lapsed as of 12:01 Saturday morning because the modified, Senate-approved spending package has to go back to the House, which is supposed to vote tonight or tomorrow. If it passes (it could go either way), it won’t be the shortest shutdown ever (which lasted a mere 6ish hours), but at least it will mean avoiding the challenges that come with the SEC being furloughed for weeks.
Last month, NYSE American filed a proposal with the SEC to amend its initial listing requirements (historically viewed as more flexible) to closely align with Nasdaq’s by adding a new minimum market value, focusing on unrestricted publicly held shares, and increasing the minimum listing price. This Morgan Lewis alert describes the changes. Here are two excerpts:
Under NYSE American’s proposal, each of the four initial listing standards in Section 101 would be amended to require a minimum market value of Unrestricted Publicly-Held shares at the $15 million level for standards 1, 2, and 3, and $20 million for standard 4. Any company listing in connection with an IPO or other underwritten public offering would be required to satisfy the Unrestricted Publicly-Held Shares requirement solely from offering proceeds. “Restricted Securities,” even if not held by insiders or 10% holders, would no longer count toward satisfaction of this requirement.
NYSE American’s proposal would also impose a uniform $4.00 minimum initial listing price across all initial listing standards. This represents an increase from current NYSE American requirements, which permit minimum initial listing prices of $2.00 or $3.00 per share depending on the applicable listing standard.
Once approved (the SEC hasn’t posted this proposal for notice & comment on its website yet), these changes will make it harder for companies to list on NYSE American, with broader implications for the market — and for the goal of getting more companies to go public.
Historically, issuers have chosen NYSE American in part because its initial listing standards offered greater flexibility than those of Nasdaq, particularly with respect to liquidity, public float composition, and the ability to rely on legacy or resale shares to satisfy listing requirements. Such flexibility has made NYSE American an attractive venue for smaller or earlier-stage companies, companies with significant insider or employee ownership, and issuers seeking to limit dilution by keeping primary offerings smaller at the time of listing.
The proposed changes would significantly narrow that flexibility. Employee equity and other outstanding shares would no longer support initial listing eligibility as shares issued under employee equity plans, shares subject to lockups, or other restricted securities would not count toward initial listing liquidity thresholds.
Issuers listing in connection with an IPO would need to size their offerings to independently satisfy the $15 million market value of unrestricted publicly held shares requirement, potentially requiring larger primary offerings and resulting in increased dilution. Further, by requiring liquidity thresholds to be met using only unrestricted publicly held shares, the proposal would reduce the ability of issuers to structure listings around resale or legacy float and further narrow the practical differences between NYSE American and Nasdaq with respect to initial listing liquidity standards.
With Nasdaq’s many proposals to tighten listing standards and purge the exchange of stocks that maybe shouldn’t be listed on an exchange anymore — or ever have been listed in the first place, it seems to be getting dicey out there for microcap companies. I understand why the exchanges are pursuing these updates, but there’s also the SEC’s goal of bringing back small-cap IPOs to think about.
On Friday, the SEC announced the appointments of Demetrios (Jim) Logothetis as Chairman and Mark Calabria, Kyle Hauptman, and Steven Laughton as Board members of the PCAOB. The SEC stated that George Botic will continue to serve as a Board member and will remain Acting Chairman until Mr. Logothetis is sworn in.
Demetrios (Jim) Logothetis serves on the board of The Republic Bank of Chicago and on the advisory council of a privately owned consultancy firm. He previously spent 40 years at E&Y.
Mark Calabria is currently an Associate Director and Chief Statistician with the U.S. Office of Management and Budget and a Senior Advisor to the Office of the Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Kyle Hauptman is currently the Chairman of the National Credit Union Administration. He previously served on the Senate Banking Committee staff, as a staff director and as Economic Policy Counselor to a senator.
Steven Laughton is currently Board Counsel to PCAOB Board Member Christina Ho. He spent more than thirty years with the U.S. Department of the Treasury, including as Senior Counsel to the General Counsel.
In Chairman Atkins’s statement, he thanked the current board members and noted that the transition to the new board will occur very quickly over the next few weeks.
Last month, John observed that “DExit” hasn’t been a stampede by any stretch, based on the (limited) number of reincorporation proposals and high percentage of Delaware-incorporated IPOs that occurred in 2024 and 2025.
A recently published dataset for entity formations, gathered by Professor Andrew Verstein at the UCLA School of Law, takes that one step further – Delaware experienced a “sharp increase” in incorporations in 2025, on an absolute basis as well as relative to other states. Here’s more detail from this HLS blog:
The Corporate Census is a draft paper and accompanying dataset that tracks entity formation in the United States. It presents a near-complete dataset of entity formations — including corporations, LLCs, and other business forms — for all U.S. states, dating back to the nation’s founding. It allows entity-by-entity, week-by-week, analyses and comparisons across states. The database includes about 100 million formations and allows for granular, longitudinal analysis of state popularity, entity-type trends, and legal or economic shocks.
And:
About 30% more Delaware corporations formed in 2025 than in 2024, greatly exceeding the prior trendline. This, while national incorporation levels remained flat.
This was an absolute increase, not driven by a decline in formation in other states. While Delaware averaged 1090 new corporations per week in 2020-24, that number increased by 309 in 2025. The rest of the nation as a whole enjoyed no statistically significant increase in corporate formation, nor did any other state individually. Plainly, something happened in 2024 or was anticipated for 2025 that rendered Delaware more attractive as a site of formation in 2025.
I was on the edge of my seat after reading that line, but the paper doesn’t arrive at any firm conclusion about what may have driven Delaware’s popularity last year, and we also can’t predict for sure whether the trend will continue. Nevertheless, it’s helpful to have numbers, instead of just “vibes,” about where Delaware stands.
