The Securities and Exchange Commission has proposed a package of rulemakings and interpretations designed to enhance the quality and transparency of investors’ relationships with investment advisers and broker-dealers. These changes will also preserve access to a variety of types of advice relationships and investment products. Generally, the proposed regulations would enhance investor protection by applying consistent principles to investment advisers and broker-dealers that provide for clear disclosures, encouraging exercising due care, and addressing conflicts of interest.

On April 17, the SEC announced that the fee rates applicable to most securities transactions will be set at $13.00 per million dollars starting on May 22, 2018. The reduction in the fee rate is partly due to the higher dollar amount of covered sales in recent months.

With the last EDGAR release, the Securities and Exchange Commission updated EDGAR to accept the US GAAP 2018 taxonomy among other new taxonomies. It’s always a good practice to transition your SEC filings as soon as possible when the SEC accepts the new taxonomy year.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has begun accepting XBRL filings under the new 2018 US-GAAP Taxonomy. Four of the nine SEC-maintained XBRL taxonomies have been altered: the DEI, EXCH, RR,
and STPR taxonomies.

On April 3rd from 1:00 to 2:30 PM EST, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) will host a webinar covering 2018 GAAP and SEC taxonomy improvements. During the webinar, the FASB staff will demonstrate how to apply the new modeling using example disclosures and discuss the new 2018 SEC Reporting Taxonomy.

On March 14th, the SEC voted to propose new Rule 610T of Regulation NMS to conduct a Transaction Fee Pilot in National Market System (NMS) stocks. This pilot would subject stock exchange fee pricing (such as “maker-taker” fee-and-rebate pricing models) to new temporary restrictions across three test groups. It would also require the exchanges to prepare and publicly post data pertaining to the pilot study. According to SEC Chairman Jay Clayton, the pilot is “...designed to generate data that will provide the Commission, market participants, and the public with information to facilitate an informed, data-driven discussion about transaction fees and rebates and their impact on order routing behavior, execution quality, and market quality in general.” The information gathered from this pilot study may elucidate the effects of transaction-based fees and rebates while allowing for an evaluation of any potential regulatory action, including possible changes to Rule 610(c) of Regulation NMS.

On March 14th, the Securities and Exchange Commission proposed amendments to the public liquidity-related disclosure requirements as they apply to certain open-end investment management companies. These amendments would replace a pending requirement that funds publicly provide the aggregate liquidity classification profile of their portfolios quarterly on Form N-PORT.

On March 12, 2018, EDGAR Release 18.1 was released by the Securities and Exchange Commission. This release introduces new form types SF-1MEF and 486BXT and contains various changes and corrections to other forms.

On March 6th, the XBRL US Domain Steering Committee, approved and posted a new XBRL US reference document for a 30-day review period, the Taxonomy Approval Metrics & Process (TAM).

On February 12th, the SEC released a notice to N-CEN and N-PORT filers to remind them of the temporary final rule which requires funds in larger fund groups (for example, fund groups with $1 billion or more in net assets) to maintain in their records the information that is mandated to be included in Form N-PORT in lieu of filing this form via EDGAR. The temporary final rule applies until April 1, 2019. Of key importance, the information the funds in larger fund groups maintain in their records will be subject to examination by the Commission. New Forms N-PORT and N-CEN were adopted by the SEC on October 13th, 2016 in an effort to enhance transparency and modernize reporting requirements for registered investment companies.

On January 25th, the SEC’s Office of Minority and Women Inclusion (OMWI) introduced its Diversity Assessment Report for Entities Regulated by the SEC, which is designed to help regulated entities conduct voluntary self-assessments of diversity policies and practices.

The SEC’s Office of Financial Management Filing Fees announced the release of the web-based Registration Fee Estimator 1.2. Included in this release are all effective fee-bearing form types.

The SEC announced on December 8th, 2017 that filing Form N-PORT on the EDGAR system will now not become mandatory until April 2019 for larger fund groups and April 2020 for smaller fund groups. However, these groups should still prepare and maintain N-PORT information in their records and make it available to the SEC upon request. This decision to modify Form N-PORT’s filing requirements comes as the agency continues its previously announced review and uplift of its EDGAR and other systems.

To aid filers avoid missing deadlines and reduce congestion around busy important filing dates, the SEC provides an anticipated peak filing schedule. Peak EDGAR filing times are estimated using historical data. The 2018 schedule is now available from the SEC.

In 2017, there were a number of new changes in EDGAR compliance and new developments in SEC regulations. These have a significant impact on financial record-keeping, financial reporting and capital formation. As we head into 2018, let’s recap some of the most significant changes that happened last year.