President Obama signed into law the FAST Act, a highway transportation bill, that includes a number of important securities law measures that each had been the subject of individual bills with strong bipartisan support.
In brief, the FAST Act amends aspects of the JOBS Act by reducing to 15 days (from 21 days) the period during which an EGC's IPO registration statement must be publicly filed; providing a transition period for issuers that were EGCs at the time that they first commenced the IPO process, and allowing EGCs to omit certain financial information from their registration statements so long as the required financial information is included prior to the consummation of the IPO.
In addition to the JOBS Act changes, the FAST Act, also implements certain changes to the Securities Act, such as providing a resale exemption as a new Section 4(a)(7), which can be thought of as a "safe harbor" for transactions similar to 4(1-1/2) placements (we previously blogged about this, which was the RAISE Act), modifying Form S-1 to allow forward incorporation, and making various other measures.
Because of the generality of this update, the information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations.
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