A House Financial Services Committee mark-up begins June 7 on seven bills covering a wide range of federal financial industry regulatory concerns.
The mark-up, scheduled for 11 a.m. ET, could continue beyond June 7. Bills slated for action include:
- H.R. 3861, the Federal Insurance Office Reform Act of 2017: Provisions in the original bill, introduced by Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., would move the Federal Insurance Office (FIO) from Treasury’s Office of Domestic Finance to the Office of International Affairs and take it out of the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC). H.R. 3861 would eliminate “duplicative duties” of this office that are performed by state insurance regulators and “focus FIO’s mission on the coordination between state insurance regulators and the federal government on issues of international importance,” a committee memorandum says. As proposed to be modified through a substitute measure from Duffy, it would eliminate FIO’s subpoena authority (and general authority) to collect information directly from insurers; eliminate its authority to study and issue reports (unless requested by Congress); eliminate Treasury’s authority to assign new duties or authorities to the FIO; and clarifies that neither FIO nor the Treasury Department has the authority to participate in supervisory colleges.
- H.R. 4557, the Reforming Disaster Recovery Act of 2018: Introduced by Rep. Ann Wagner, R-Mo., H.R. 4557 would amend Title I of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 to establish guidance and standards on how disaster funds may be distributed and accounted for if those funds are appropriated by Congress and distributed through the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) program to be given to states and localities. A substitute measure will be used in mark-up.
- H.R. 5054,the Small Company Disclosure Simplification Act of 2018: Introduced by Rep David Kustoff, R-Tenn., H.R. 5054 provides a voluntary exemption for all emerging growth companies (EGC) and other issuers with annual gross revenues under $250 million from the Security and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) requirements to file their financial statements in an interactive data format known as eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL).
- H.R. 5756, to require the Securities and Exchange Commission to adjust certain resubmission thresholds for shareholder proposals: Introduced by Duffy, H.R. 5756 directs the SEC to revise Rule 14a-8(c)(12) to allow a company to exclude a shareholder proposal that focuses on substantially the same subject matter as a prior proposal that failed to receive at least 6% of the vote on its first submission, 15% on the second submission, and 30% on the third submission.
- H.R. 5783, the Cooperate with Law Enforcement Agencies and Watch Act: Introduced by Rep. French Hill, R-Ark., H.R. 5783 provides safe harbor to financial institutions that keep an account open at the request of a federal law enforcement agency for investigatory purposes. According to the committee, the bill supports law enforcement by allowing financial institutions to comply with a request to maintain a suspicious account without being penalized by regulators; no federal department or agency could take an adverse supervisory action with respect to the financial institution keeping such an account open.
- H.R. 5877, the Main Street Growth Act of 2018: Introduced by Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., H.R. 5877 allows for the creation and registration of venture exchanges with the SEC. Venture exchanges would be prohibited from extending unlisted trading privileges (UTP) to any venture security, which would prevent venture securities from trading on exchanges other than the one that it is listed on in order to concentrate liquidity onto the venture exchange, and venture exchanges would be exempt from decimalization.
- H.R. ,the Streamlining Communications for Investors Act: To be introduced by Rep. Ted Budd, R-N.C., this bill directs the SEC to revise Rule 163(c) to allow a well-known seasoned issuer (WKSI) to authorize an underwriter or dealer to act as its agent or representative in communicating about offerings of the issuer’s securities prior to the filing of a registration statement.