On May 10th, the SEC proposed a new package of rule amendments and interpretive guidance to better the framework for regulating cross-border security-based swaps transactions and market participants. Intended to improve regulation by pragmatically addressing implementation issues and efficiency concerns, the proposed rules will further harmonize the regulatory regime governing security-based swaps administered by the SEC with the regulatory regime administered by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). These rules primarily pertain to security-based swap dealers and major security-based swap participants (SBS Entities).

The SEC has released the draft version of the 2019 DEI taxonomy for public review. This taxonomy contains the elements required for the tagging of cover page data for Inline XBRL submissions and is open for public comment until June 6, 2019.

The SEC voted on May 9th to propose amendments to the accelerated filer and large accelerated filer definitions. These amendments would reduce costs for certain lower-revenue companies by more appropriately tailoring the types of companies that are categorized as accelerated and large accelerated filers while maintaining effective investor protections. Under these new amendments to Exchange Act Rule 12b-2, smaller reporting companies with less than $100 million in revenues would not be required to obtain an attestation of their internal control over financial reporting from an independent outside auditor. The key protections from the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, including independent audit committee requirements, CEO and CFO certifications of financial reports, and the requirement that companies continue to establish, maintain, and assess the effectiveness of their internal control, would not be altered by the proposed changes.

On May 3rd, the SEC proposed rule amendments to improve information that investors receive regarding the acquisition and disposition of businesses. The proposed amendments are also intended to facilitate more timely access to capital and reduce complexity and compliance costs.

On April 24th, the SEC announced the agenda for its May 31st forum that will discuss distributed ledger technology and assets. This conference, which is the 2019 FinTech Forum, will be held by the SEC’s Strategic Hub for Innovation and Financial Technology (FinHub) and will begin at 9:30 am EST in Washington, DC at the SEC’s Headquarters. It will be open to the public on a first-come, first-serve basis.

On April 1, 2019, EDGAR Release 19.1.1 was released by the Securities and Exchange Commission. This release included a new “confidential” flag for NPORT-P and NPORT-NP filings as well as changes to the Dissemination Rule for N-PORT filings. Additionally, filers are now allowed submit NPORT-EX as an attachment to NPORT-P and NPORT-NP after August 31, 2019.

Version 4.26b of all applications in the GoFiler Suite has been released. This release corresponds to EDGAR Release 19.1.1 and contains a number of improvements to Form N-CEN View and Form N-PORT View. Additionally, this version contains new functions for XDX, support for the XBRL Previewer for EDGAR 19.1.1, and improvements to some general EDGAR tools.