The SEC’s Spring 2025 Reg Flex Agenda was released yesterday, just in time to coincide with the arrival of meteorological fall, and crypto regulation and efforts to ease capital raising rank high on the agency’s agenda. Here’s where things stand on some of the potential SEC rules that we’ve been following:

Prerule Stage

– Foreign Private Issuer Eligibility (no date)

Proposed Rule Stage

– Rule 144 Safe Harbor (April 2026)
– Crypto Assets (April 2026)
– Enhancement of EGC Accommodations & Simplification of Filer Status (April 2026)
– Shelf Registration Modernization (April 2026)
– Updating the Exempt Offering Pathways (April 2026)
– Rationalization of Disclosure Practices (April 2026)
– Shareholder Proposal Modernization (April 2026)
– Crypto Market Structure Amendments (April 2026)

I’ve got to say, this is probably the most issuer-friendly Reg Flex Agenda I’ve ever seen – and this excerpt from SEC Chairman Paul Atkins’ statement on the Agenda indicates that this is not an accident:

This regulatory agenda reflects that it is a new day at the Securities and Exchange Commission. The items on the agenda represent the Commission’s renewed focus on supporting innovation, capital formation, market efficiency, and investor protection.

Some of you may have noticed that despite all the recent activity at the SEC over executive comp disclosure, it’s not specifically called out in the Reg Flex Agenda. I don’t know for sure, but my guess is that proposed changes to those rules may be part of the “Rationalization of Disclosure Practices” agenda item – and that agenda item’s title suggests that there may be more areas of the public company disclosure regime that the SEC is thinking about revamping.

This Reg Flex Agenda is also one of the most ambitious I’ve seen, and in light of media reports indicating that the SEC is heading into another round of staff cuts, it will be interesting to see if the agency has the bandwidth to move forward on these initiatives in a timely manner.

– John Jenkins