The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee (SBCFAC) has scheduled its first meeting of 2023 following the influx of new members announced earlier this month.
The meeting, which is open to the public and will be live-streamed on the SEC website, will take place on June 14, 2023 at 10AM ET. As of today, no official agenda has been posted beyond the perfunctory statement that the Committee will discuss topics “relating to rules and regulations affecting small and emerging businesses and their investors under the federal securities laws.”
There is a concern that new members may veer from the Committee’s mandate of streamlining access to capital and updating regulations to improve the ecosystem for smaller firms in need of growth capital. The last Committee publicly expressed its concern that current leadership of the Commission was ignoring key issues to the point that “too many small companies will be at risk of “dying on the vine” – and with them their innovation, job creation, and economic opportunities that fuels our country’s global economic dominance.”
While the SEC is required by law to review and respond to recommendations issued by SBCFAC, during the tenure of SEC Chair Gary Gensler, effectively, all recommendations have been ignored. One SEC insider described the Gensler Commission as “anti-capital formation.” A willingness by the new Committee members to continue the efforts of the past Committee, and actively advocate on behalf of entrepreneurs, will be key to supporting capital formation for smaller firms.