Investor Protection

CFA Opposes Bills Being Considered by the House Financial Services Committee That Would Strip Away Investor Protections

In a letter to the members of the House Financial Service Committee, CFA urges opposition to several ill-considered bills scheduled for mark-up in the Committee this week. Although the bills are being promoted as benefiting capital formation, most simply adjust the rules that govern capital raising, sometimes in reckless and counter-productive ways, without doing anything to attract the new capital necessary to expand capital formation. On the contrary, by stripping away protections for investors, the providers of capital, several of the bills would undermine confidence in the integrity of the markets, which is essential to a healthy capital formation process. Other bills, by favoring private markets over public markets, threaten to worsen the decline in the number of public companies, which is bad for investors and for the overall economy.

The bills being opposed include: H.R. 3857, the “Protect Advice for Small Savers Act;” H.R. 3911, the ‘‘Risk-Based Credit Examination Act;” H.R. 2201, the “Micro Offering Safe Harbor Act;” H.R. 1585, the “Fair Investment Opportunities for Professional Experts Act;” H.R. 1645, the “Fostering Innovation Act; ” and H.R. 3948, the “Protection of Source Code Act.”

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