After a little political battle earlier in the month, the House of Representatives has now passed HR 37, which includes a voluntary exemption for "emerging growth companies" (mostly under $1 billion in revenues) to choose not to utilize Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) for financial...
In a celebratory moment for financial printing companies, the House of Representatives this week failed to re-pass a comprehensive business package that included an exemption from XBRL financial reporting for smaller companies. The House had overwhelmingly passed the same bill in November before the new...
If you are an investor or make your money from the market or Wall Street, there's not much to be unhappy about as we close out 2014. The Dow Jones Industrial Average in the last year has gone from around 15,300 to about 18,100, up...
As I have for many years, last week I attended the annual SEC Government-Business Forum on Small Business Capital Formation. This Congressionally mandated event leads with a few panels followed by breakout discussion groups that develop formal recommendations to the SEC staff and commissioners to...
There was a time in the 2000s during the boom of Chinese companies' entering the US public markets when executives visiting from the PRC knew only one thing in English: "OTCBB." Officially known as the OTC Bulletin Board and owned and operated by the Financial...
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, primarily a response to the fraud perpetrated by energy giant Enron and not detected by their then accountants, brought some good. However, in my view it was mostly an overreaction to a very limited issue, and thankfully its impact on...
About a month ago, eight senior Democratic Senators (including Sen. Al Franken, above) wrote to SEC Chair Mary Jo White to oppose the SEC's proposed rules under the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act of 2012 regarding Regulation A public offerings. In particular, the Senators...
There is a section of the US Securities and Exchange Commission's website titled, "Completed Initiatives of Interest to Small Business." Since 2008 there are only three items listed. Two were mandated by Dodd-Frank and the other by the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act of...
As my faithful blogees know, I have been a strong advocate for the changes to SEC Regulation A that are in the process of being finalized. Congress mandated that the SEC implement these changes as part of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act of...
My regular blogees know that each year, as mandated by Congress, the SEC holds a Government-Business Forum on Small Business Capital Formation. The result of each forum is a list of recommendations developed by the participants who range from business folks, professionals, academics and government...