There are a number of recent developments in U.S. securities
regulation that will be noteworthy to some Canadian companies.
While we cover a broad range of matters here, generally these
developments can be categorized as addressing two focal points of
U.S. federal securities regulators in recent years: decreasing the
burdens of public capital raising and adapting the U.S. securities
regime to new technological developments.
Testing the waters
The SEC may soon permit any company to test the waters for a
U.S. public offering. Currently, only emerging growth companies
(annual revenue US$700 million) and their investment banks are
permitted to test the waters by talking to sophisticated
institutional investors. For details, including a Canadian
comparison, see "
U.S. public offerings: All companies may soon be permitted
to test the waters."
