Congressman Kevin Cramer announced yesterday that the House of Representatives passed H.R. 1675, the Capital Markets Improvement Act of 2016. H.R. 1675 provides for various reforms related to financial services in an attempt to alleviate the burdens on employers (particularly small businesses) by repealing and/or amending outdated SEC regulations.

As Novaworks has released new versions our software throughout the years, our support team frequently are asked about the Office of Management and Budget (or “OMB”) date that appears on the proof for certain forms. This OMB information changes periodically, and, while it isn’t filed to EDGAR with your form data, it has raised questions from filers about what the OMB information is and why it doesn’t always appear up to date.

On January 25, 2016, EDGAR 16.0.1 was released by the Securities and Exchange Commission. This release
contained new EDGAR forms and some minor updates to the specification for Form N-MFP1.

In December, the SEC proposed new rules that would allow registered investment companies, including mutual funds, and business development companies to engage in derivative transactions, provided such companies meet certain conditions. The increased growth and complexity of derivatives markets and the increased use of derivatives by certain funds has caused the SEC to review the current regulations for derivatives in the Investment Company Act.

The Section 16 EDGAR forms are fairly straightforward for filers and preparers, but sometimes you can run into something a little out of the ordinary and have questions about how to file it. We’ve compiled a list of the five most common questions our support team is asked about Section 16 to help you confidently prepare the more unusual Section 16 filings.

A new “end of life” upgrade notification will be delivered to Windows users by Microsoft on January 12, 2016. This upgrade notification will inform users that technical support and security updates for Internet Explorer will only be available for the most current version of Internet Explorer for each supported operating system.

The SEC has recently re-proposed Rule 13q-1 and an amendment to EDGAR Form SD to require the disclosure of payments made to governments by resource extraction issuers. Rule 13q-1 was previously adopted by the SEC in August of 2012 but was vacated by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after being challenged by the American Petroleum Institute (“API”), the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and two other industry groups. Recently, the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts issued an order holding that the SEC unlawfully withheld agency action by not promulgating a final rule. Subsequently, the SEC filed an expedited schedule for promulgating the final rule, re-proposed Rule 13q-1 in SEC Release No 34-77620, and would vote on the adoption of a final rule in June 2016.

On December 14, 2015, EDGAR 15.4 was released by the Securities and Exchange Commission. This release contained new EDGAR forms and changes to the EDGAR Filer Manual that detail how the SEC chooses to render XBRL reports.

The SEC adopted a number of new regulations in 2015 and many of them have rules and new EDGAR forms that will become effective in 2016. In the first and second quarter of next year, expect a number of changes to EDGAR to accommodate these changes.

The SEC adopted the final rule allowing companies to offer and sell securities through crowdfunding on October 30, 2015. These new rules (Regulation Crowdfunding) require companies who opt to raise money through crowdfunding to provide the SEC with new disclosures via EDGAR and are expected to take effect during the second quarter of 2016.

On September 14, 2015, EDGAR 15.3 was released by the Securities and Exchange Commission. This release contained new EDGAR forms and changes to exhibits.

On August 3, 2015, EDGAR 15.2.2 was released by the Securities and Exchange Commission. This release contained new EDGAR forms and new EDGAR applicant types.

The XBRL US Center for Data Quality has launched a public review for seven proposed validation rules. These rules are available for comment by public companies, data providers, analysts and XBRL providers for sixty days and pertain to providing validation tests for XBRL errors.