On November 17, 2016, the staff of the SEC's Division of Corporation Finance (the "Staff") issued four new compliance and disclosure interpretations ("C&DIs") addressing aspects of offerings under Regulation A and Regulation D. Highlights of the C&DIs include, among other things, the following guidance:
- An issuer that seeks to qualify an additional class of securities by a post-qualification amendment to a previously qualified offering statement under Regulation A must satisfy the requirements of Item 4 to Part I of Form 1-A by providing responses that relate only to the additional class of securities.
- A change of 20% or less in the aggregate offering price, which is permitted under the Note to Rule 253(b) of Regulation A without a post-qualification amendment, may be measured from either the high end (in the case of an increase in the offering price) or the low end (in the case of a decrease in the offering price) of that range. However, a change of 20% or less is not permitted where the maximum aggregate offering price would result in the offering exceeding the relevant offering limit ($20 million for Tier 1 offerings and $50 million for Tier 2 offerings) or if the change would result in a Tier 1 offering becoming a Tier 2 offering.
- Consistent with the treatment of EGCs under Section 71003 of the FAST Act, a company filing or confidentially submitting an offering statement under Regulation A may omit financial information for historical periods otherwise required by Part F/S of the Form 1-A, including financial information of other entities required to be included in Part F/S. However, the company must reasonably believe that the omitted information will not be required to be included in the offering statement at the time of qualification.
- Offers and sales of securities made in reliance on Rule 506(b) prior to the use of general solicitation in a subsequent Rule 506(c) offering will not be integrated with the offers and sales of securities made in reliance on Rule 506(c).
A copy of the C&DIs is available at: https://media2.mofo.com/documents/161118-question-182-12.pdf
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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