JOBS Act

Investor Qualification. Each time before accepting any investment commitment, an intermediary must have a reasonable basis for believing that the investor satisfies the investment limitations discussed above; in doing so, an intermediary may rely on an investor’s representations concerning the investor’s annual income, net worth, and the amount of the investor’s other investments made under the crowdfunding exemption, unless the…

Funding Portal Registration. As expected, a funding portal must register with the SEC by filing a complete Form Funding Portal (to be amended whenever previously submitted information becomes inaccurate) and become a member of a national securities association[1]; a funding portal that is registered this way is exempt from the broker registration requirements.[2] A non-U.S. portal can register, too, but…

Intermediaries. All crowdfunding must be done through an intermediary. No issuer can do crowdfunding directly without hiring one. The Act imposes various requirements on crowdfunding intermediaries.[1] For starters, intermediaries have to register with the SEC as a broker or as a funding portal and become a member of a national securities association.[2] Under the final rules, intermediaries would also have…

Disclosure Requirements. Under the final rules, an issuer must file with the SEC and provide to the relevant intermediary and investors a Form C: Offering Statement, prior to the commencement of the offering of securities and amend the same to disclose any material changes, additions or updates.[1] The final rules set forth information that needs to be included in Form…

On October 30, 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) finally voted to adopt the final rules to implement Title III of the JOBS Act, popularly known as the “CROWDFUND Act (Capital Raising Online While Deterring Fraud and Unethical Non-Disclosure Act of 2012)” (In this blog, we will just call it the Act.). See our previous blogs titled “SEC Votes…

Intrastate Exemption. We briefly touched on the concept of intrastate exemption in our previous blog series on crowdfunding (available here). As the name suggests, intrastate offerings are transactions that do not involve interstate commerce (hence the exemption, as being outside of the scope of the Securities Act of 1933). This is important because, to qualify for the intrastate offering exemption…

General Solicitation. As we discussed in our previous blog series on exempt offerings (available here), absence of general solicitation is a condition to be met in most exempt offerings, with limited exceptions, such as offering under Rule 506(c).  This is important because, to qualify for an exemption from registration, an issuer must meet all the requirements of the exemption.  General…

Verification of Accredited Investor Status. The next set of questions are related to the requirement under Rule 506(c) that an issuer take reasonable steps to verify, and form a reasonable belief regarding, the accredited investor status of a purchaser at the time of the sale of securities.[1]  This is important because, to qualify for an exemption from registration, an issuer…

On August 6, 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) issued Compliance and Disclosure Interpretations (“C&DIs”). For the full text of the C&DIs, click here. C&DIs are not rules, regulations, or statements of the SEC, but reflect the current views of the staff of the agency, which should be of interest to many businesses that want to raise capital through…