Earlier this week, as part of the continuing Disclosure Effectiveness initiative, the SEC released a proposed rule for comment that would require registrants that file registration statements and periodic and current reports that are subject to the exhibit requirements under Item 601 of Regulation S-K, or that file on Forms F-10 or 20-F, to include a hyperlink to each exhibit listed in the exhibit index of the filings. The amendments would also require that registrants submit all of these filings in HTML format. Currently, registrants list out exhibits and it often is time-consuming to trace back to identify when the registrant filed an exhibit that's been incorporated by reference to a prior filing. Here is the link to the proposed rule, which is subject to a 45-day comment period: https://www.sec.gov/rules/proposed/2016/33-10201.pdf.

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