Capital Markets Improvement Act of 2016
Latest action. Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
Capital Markets Improvement Act of 2016
TITLE I--ENCOURAGING EMPLOYEE OWNERSHIP
(Sec. 101) This bill directs the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to revise regulations to require an issuer to furnish investors with additional specified disclosures regarding compensatory benefit plans if the aggregate sales price or amount of securities sold during any consecutive 12-month period exceeds $10 million (currently $5 million), indexed for inflation every five years.
TITLE II--FAIR ACCESS TO INVESTMENT RESEARCH
(Sec. 201) The SEC shall revise a specified regulation to create a safe harbor for certain publications or distributions of research reports by brokers or dealers distributing securities.
The revised regulation shall declare that, even if a broker or dealer participates in the registered offering of a covered investment fund's securities, the investment fund research report shall not be deemed to constitute an offer for sale nor an offer to sell a security that is the subject of the offering pursuant to a registration statement that the issuer proposes to file, or has filed, or that is effective.
The covered investment fund research report shall be deemed to satisfy the regulation's requirements as well as those of any self-regulatory organization.
The SEC shall not impose specified conditions and requirements when implementing the safe harbor.
TITLE III--SMALL BUSINESS MERGERS, ACQUISITIONS, SALES, AND BROKERAGE SIMPLIFICATION
(Sec. 301) The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 is amended to exempt from its registration requirements certain merger and acquisition brokers and associated persons.
This registration exemption, however, shall be denied to brokers who:
receive, hold, transmit, or have custody of any funds or securities to be exchanged by parties to a transfer of ownership of an eligible privately held company;
engage on behalf of an issuer in a public offering of securities that are either subject to mandatory registration, or with respect to which the issuer must file periodic information, documents, and reports; or
engage on behalf of any party in a transaction involving a public shell company.
The summary continues for 17 more paragraphs. Read it in full on Congress.gov
Written by analysts at the Congressional Research Service and published on Congress.gov, not by Civibrief. Summarized at the "Passed House amended" stage on February 3, 2016. It describes the bill, it is not the legal text.
Where is it in the process, and what happens next?
4 steps remain before this bill could become law.
The record's latest action, on February 4, 2016: Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
- Clearing the committees it was referred to, and being scheduled for a floor vote
- Passage by the House
- Passage by the Senate
- The President's signature. If the President vetoes it, two-thirds of both chambers must vote to override.
How likely is it to become law?
Civibrief does not forecast outcomes and this page has no opinion about this one. What the record supports is a base rate, which is a fact about the whole pile, not a prediction about this measure.
In the 114th Congress (2015-16), 329 of the 10,233 bills and joint resolutions introduced became law, about 3.2 percent. That count covers every measure at every stage, including the many that never left committee.
This one is not there yet: 4 steps are still outstanding, listed above.
Has anyone actually voted on it?
No. No roll call in this Congress cites this measure. That is the ordinary outcome: most measures never reach a recorded floor vote, and a committee ends most of them simply by not acting.
A vote is not the only thing that happens to a measure. Hearings, markups, and referrals are all recorded actions, and none of them is a vote of the full chamber.
Who is behind it?
Randy Hultgren (R-IL) introduced it on March 26, 2015, and 8 members have since signed on as cosponsors.
They come from both major parties: 5 Democrats, 3 Republicans.
Cosponsoring is a formal signature on the text. It is not a commitment to vote for the measure, it does not bind anyone's party, and a long list of cosponsors is a measure of attention rather than of prospects.
How long has it been in play?
It was introduced on March 26, 2015, 4186 days ago. The most recent recorded action was 3871 days ago, on February 4, 2016.
Measures do not carry over. Anything the 114th Congress has not finished by January 3, 2017 dies when the term ends, and has to be introduced again from the start in the next Congress.
Every answer above is assembled from this measure's own record on Congress.gov and from published counts of what Congress has passed before. Civibrief does not predict outcomes and takes no position on any measure.
Vote history
- HouseIn committee, no floor vote yet
- SenateAwaits House passage
- PresidentAwaits both chambers