SEC Publishes Draft Strategic Plan for Public Comment (with Lofchie Comment)
The SEC published for public comment its Draft Strategic Plan, which outlines the agency's mission, vision, values, major initiatives, performance metrics and strategic goals for fiscal years 2014 to 2018.
The draft of the plan establishes four primary strategic goals (though these are at a high level of generality), which are as follows:
- to establish and maintain an effective regulatory environment;
- to foster and enforce compliance with federal securities laws;
- to facilitate access to the information that investors need to make informed investment decisions; and
- to enhance the SEC's performance through the effective alignment and management of human, information and financial capital.
Of more interest to practitioners are the specific goals, which include:
- improving disclosure
- JOBS Act and Dodd-Frank rulemaking
- strengthening proxy infrastructure
- increased disclosure as to beneficial ownership relating to derivative positions
- regulation of broker-dealers providing personalized advice
- disclosure and other requirements as to mutual funds
- regulation of accountants and of the conduct of audits
- regulation of clearing structures
- disclosures as to asset-backed securities
- regulation of municipal advisors
- regulation of market structure, including as to algorithmic and automated trading, and to the regulation of ATS and dark pools
- regulation of the options markets
- improving the technological infrastructure of the markets
- regulation of small cap securities
- regulation of money market funds
- the market structure for fixed income debt
Comments on the Draft Strategic Plan should be sent by email to [email protected] by March 10, 2014.
Lofchie Comment: This long laundry list of tasks in the SEC's strategic plan emphasizes the significance of Commissioner O'Malia's observation that Congress is not serving investors or the economy when it imposes on the SEC the requirement to adopt rules that have nothing whatsoever to do with the actual mission of the SEC, but that are intended to advance an interest group's political or electoral agenda. See, e.g., SEC Commissioner Gallagher Remarks on Corporate Disclosure (with Lofchie Comment). That said, the most interesting question raised by Commissioner O'Malia was this: Given that the SEC has more tasks than it has hands to achieve those tasks, how should the SEC prioritize the fulfillment of Congressional directives that have nothing to do with the protection of investors?