Accelerating Access to Capital Act of 2016
Latest action. Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
Accelerating Access to Capital Act of 2016
TITLE I--ACCELERATING ACCESS TO CAPITAL
(Sec. 101) This bill directs the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to revise Form S-3 (a simplified securities registration form for companies that have already met other reporting requirements) so as to permit securities to be registered pursuant to General Instruction I.B.1. of the form if: (1) the aggregate market value of voting and non-voting common equity held by non-affiliates of the registrant is $75 million or more, or (2) the registrant has at least one class of common equity securities listed and registered on a national securities exchange.
The SEC must remove a certain listing and registration requirement from General Instruction I.B.6. of Form S-3.
TITLE II--MICRO-OFFERING SAFE HARBOR
(Sec. 201) The Securities Act of 1933 is amended to exempt from specified prohibitions against the sale or delivery after sale of unregistered securities, among other things, transactions involving the sale of securities by an issuer of micro-offerings if:
each purchaser has a substantive pre-existing relationship with either an officer or director of the issuer, or with a shareholder holding 10% or more of the issuer's shares;
during the 12-month period preceding the transaction there are no more than 35 purchasers of such micro-offerings sold in reliance on this exemption; and
the aggregate amount of all securities sold by the issuer (including any amount sold in reliance upon the exemption) during the 12-month period preceding the transaction does not exceed $500,000.
The exemption shall not apply, however, to transactions involving a sale of securities if issuers, officers, beneficial owners, promotors, investment managers, or other specified persons would have triggered the SEC's "bad actor" disqualification standards for certain previous securities violations or criminal convictions. These bad actors are prohibited from participating in a micro-offering.
The bill also exempts such micro-offerings from state regulation of securities offerings.
TITLE III--PRIVATE PLACEMENT IMPROVEMENT
(Sec. 301) The SEC must revise the filing requirements of Regulation D (which provides exemptions from securities registration requirements) to require an issuer that offers or sells securities in reliance upon a certain exemption from registration (for limited offers and sales without regard to the dollar amount of the offering [Rule 506]) to file, no earlier than 15 days after the date of first sale of such securities, a single notice of sales containing the information required by Form D (used to file a notice of an exempt offering of securities under Regulation D) for each new offering of securities.
The summary continues for 3 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 September 8, 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 September 12, 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?
Ann Wagner (R-MO) introduced it on May 15, 2015. No cosponsors are recorded.
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 May 15, 2015, 4136 days ago. The most recent recorded action was 3650 days ago, on September 12, 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