SEC Eases Requirements For Non-US Issuer Deregistration

On March 21, the US Securities and Exchange Commission voted unanimously to adopt new rule changes that will enable non-US issuers that meet specified conditions to more easily terminate the registration of their securities under the US Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and more easily extract themselves from ongoing public reporting obligations in the United States. The final rule changes are not substantially different from the relaxed rule changes re-proposed by the SEC in December 2006 (and described by us in a previous Dorsey eUpdate, on December 15, 2006). The re-proposals followed international criticism of the Commission’s original rule change proposals, which were made in 2005. Significantly, the SEC did modify the final rule changes to allow issuers to meet trading volume requirements even more easily than as re-proposed.