Earlier in the week, SEC Chair Clayton provided testimony in Congress regarding the Commission's agenda. In his testimony, Chair Clayton noted that the Commission remains focused on regulatory initiatives required by the FAST Act and the Dodd-Frank Act. Chair Clayton also noted that the new Regulatory Flexibility Act agenda will be released in a few weeks, which will reflect the Commission's priorities. The prior agenda reflected interim Chair Piwowar's priorities for the Commission.

Chair Clayton reiterated his concerns regarding the decline in the number of U.S. public companies. He noted that the regulatory burden needs to be reassessed so that private companies might consider IPOs. Chair Clayton observed that "A shrinking proportion of public companies, particularly smaller and medium-sized companies, has costs beyond investment choices, including that there will be less publicly available information about the operations and performance of companies that are important to our economy." The Division of Corporation Finance is considering whether there are other areas (other than those addressed in the Division's guidance this summer relating to extending the confidential review process and providing registrants with guidance regarding certain accounting questions in advance of a filing) in which interpretive guidance could assist companies without reducing investor protections, and whether enhancements can be made to staff processes to further benefit companies and investors. The Commission will soon also consider a rule proposal required by the FAST Act to modernize and simplify the disclosure requirements in Regulation S-K, and the Staff is considering recommendations on final rule amendments to the “smaller reporting company” definition. Chair Clayton mentioned a number of other initiatives, including changes to the rules in Regulation S-X related to requirements for financial statements for entities other than the issuer; and industry-specific disclosure requirements, such as the property disclosure requirements for mining companies and preparing recommendations for proposed rules to modernize bank holding company disclosures. The full text of the prepared testimony is available here: https://www.sec.gov/news/testimony/testimony-clayton-2017-09-26.

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