The Securities and Exchange Commission plans to propose some major rules this year and next and finalize a couple more, according to its just-released regulatory flexibility agenda.
The "regulatory agenda reflects that it is a new day at the Securities and Exchange Commission," Paul Atkins, the SEC chair, said in a statement. The items on the Spring 2025 Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions "represent the Commission's renewed focus on supporting innovation, capital formation, market efficiency, and investor protection."
A "key priority," Atkins added, "is clear rules of the road for the issuance, custody, and trading of crypto assets while continuing to discourage bad actors from violating the law."
The agenda also covers "a number of envisioned deregulatory rule proposals to reduce compliance burdens and facilitate capital formation, including by simplifying pathways for raising capital and investor access to private businesses," he said.
While the reg flex agenda sets out the securities regulator's planned rulemaking schedule for the year, such agendas are placeholders and the SEC's rulemaking agenda can change throughout the year. The spring reg flex agenda usually arrives in May or June.
"The September posting may reflect additional deliberation necessary for transitioning to a new policy outlook," said Nick Morgan, founder of Investor Choice Advocates Network, a nonprofit advocacy group.
This rulemaking agenda "also represents a change from the prior administration's rulemaking pace, which drew criticisms for short notice periods that did not allow sufficient time for public consideration and comment," Morgan relayed.
The key focus of this SEC "is crypto so the two crypto related rules will most definitely come to fruition," Amy Lynch, founder and president of FrontLine Compliance, said Thursday in an email. "Also, any updating rules or modernization rules that account for industry practice changes will also most likely be released since this SEC is all for modernization and ease of capital formation."
What's missing? A "proposed rule or even pre-rule work to shift the registration threshold for advisers" that Mark Uyeda, an SEC commissioner, discussed earlier this year, noted Roseanne Harford, director of thought leadership at ACA.
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