Regulation A+

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If you were looking for a safe blockchain investment and had the chance to invest in the “first licensed and regulated tokenized cryptocurrency exchange and index fund based in the U.S.” and audited by a Big 4 accounting firm, you might do it, right? One problem: turns out it’s not licensed, regulated or audited.

On October 11, 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced it had obtained an emergency court order halting Blockvest, LLC’s initial coin offering, whose sponsors falsely claimed that it was “registered” and “approved” by the SEC and other regulators, that its chief marketing officer was licensed by FINRA and that it was audited by Deloitte. None of that was true. The sponsors claimed they had already raised more than $2.5 million in pre-ICO sales of its digital token, BLV, and that it sought to raise an aggregate of $100 million in the ICO. The order also halts ongoing pre-ICO sales by Blockvest and its founder, Reginald Buddy Ringgold, III, a/k/a Rasool Abdul Rahim El.

The most brazen aspect of the alleged fraudulent scheme was the sponsors’ apparent creation of a fictitious blockchain regulatory agency which they call the “Blockchain Exchange Commission” or “BEC”, which they claim “regulates the blockchain digital asset space to protect digital asset investors”.  In May 2018, roughly one month after filing a Form D for the BLV offering (see below), Ringgold created the BEC, renaming a company that had been previously incorporated under various names including “Fartlife.” The BEC seems to plagiarize the SEC’s logo and mission statement, and gives itself the same address as SEC headquarters (100 F Street, NE, Washington, DC).  The BEC’s LinkedIn page includes a logo nearly identical to the SEC’s logo (see left), as well as the following mission statement, also uncannily similar to the SEC’s:

“The mission of the BEC is to protect investors; and assist in maintaining fair, orderly, and efficient markets within the Blockchain Digital Asset Space…The Blockchain Exchange Commission, or BEC, is dedicated to investor protection and market integrity.”

Blockvest also appears to be confused about securities offering rules. It filed a Form D with the SEC on April 16, 2018, claiming an exemption under Rule 506(c), which requires that all purchasers be accredited investors and that the issuer use reasonable methods to verify status. The SEC’s complaint states that, on information and belief, Blockvest has not taken reasonable steps to ensure that BLV investors are accredited. Also, despite their Form D, Blockvest’s website invokes Regulation A. Never mind that Regulation A has an offering limit of $50 million (Blockvest is seeking $100 million in its ICO), and prohibits any sales until the issuer has filed an offering statement on Form 1-A and the SEC has issued a notice of qualification. The SEC’s complaint further states that Blockvest’s website stated falsely that its ICO was “Reg A+ compliant” and can offer its securities to unaccredited investors all over the globe. Blockvest’s website now states that the “Pre-IPO testing the waters phase has been halted.” Testing the waters is a Regulation A concept.  Blockvest hasn’t filed a Form 1-A offering statement, nor has any offering been qualified by the SEC under Regulation A.

The SEC complaint should serve as a warning to issuers conducting unregistered ICOs to exercise caution and avoid language implying that that their tokens have been registered with the SEC, or that the SEC has passed on the merits of the offered tokens. This is why exempt offerings include the following legend in their disclosure documents:

THE SECURITIES OFFERED HEREBY HAVE NOT BEEN APPROVED BY THE UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION, OR ANY STATE SECURITY AUTHORITY. ANY REPRESENTATION TO THE CONTRARY IS UNLAWFUL.

THE UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION DOES NOT PASS UPON THE MERITS OF OR GIVE ITS APPROVAL TO ANY SECURITIES OFFERED OR THE TERMS OF THE OFFERING, NOR DOES IT PASS UPON THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF ANY OFFERING CIRCULAR OR OTHER SOLICITATION MATERIALS. THESE SECURITIES ARE OFFERED PURSUANT TO AN EXEMPTION FROM REGISTRATION WITH THE COMMISSION; HOWEVER, THE COMMISSION HAS NOT MADE AN INDEPENDENT DETERMINATION THAT THE SECURITIES OFFERED HEREUNDER ARE EXEMPT FROM REGISTRATION.

 

Buried in new legislation mainly intended to ease Dodd-Frank restrictions on small banks is an expansion of Regulation A eligibility to include SEC reporting companies. Previously, such companies were not eligible. The new access to Regulation A will create a viable mini-public offering pathway for SEC reporting companies, particularly those not eligible for registering securities on the streamlined Form S-3 registration statement.

Regulation A is an exemption from registration requirements for offerings of up to $50 million in any 12-month period, subject to eligibility, disclosure and reporting requirements.  The exemption, often referred to as Regulation A+, provides for two tiers of offerings: Tier 1 for offerings of up to $20 million and Tier 2 for offerings of up to $50 million, in each case during any 12-month period. Tier 2 offerings are subject to additional disclosure and ongoing reporting requirements, but consequently benefit from preemption of state securities law registration and qualification requirements. As originally adopted, SEC reporting companies were not eligible to use Regulation A+.

On May 24, 2018, President Trump signed into law the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, which primarily is intended to ease the burdens on smaller banks under Dodd-Frank. Buried in the Act is Section 508, entitled “Improving Access to Capital”, which expands the availability of Regulation A+ by requiring the SEC to remove the requirement that the issuer not be an SEC reporting company. Section 508 also requires the SEC to amend Regulation A+ so that any company subject to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Exchange Act will be deemed to have met the periodic and current reporting requirements of Regulation A+ if it satisfies the Section 13 reporting requirements.

Currently, public companies seeking to conduct small public offerings in the range of up to $50 million would likely register such offering with the SEC through a streamlined registration statement on Form S-3, which has certain significant benefits. Form S-3 is a short-form registration statement which allows the issuer to update the registration statement’s disclosure prospectively through incorporation by reference of the issuer’s subsequently filed current reports on Form 8-K and periodic reports on Form 10-Q and Form 10-K. This “evergreen” feature means that a company generally will not need to file any post-effective amendments to the registration statement, a time and cost saving advantage.

The process of completing a registered offering on Form S-3 is generally quicker and cheaper than even a Reg A+ offering. So as a practical matter, it’s unlikely that S-3 eligible issuers will opt to do a Reg A+ offering over S-3.

But use of Form S-3 is subject to several stringent issuer and transaction eligibility requirements, including that the issuer be organized and have its principal business operations in the United States and that it have a public float, i.e., aggregate market value of common equity held by non-affiliates, of at least $75 million (unless it’s a listed company, limits the offering amount to not more than one-third of the company’s public float during any 12-month period and is not a shell company).

So issuers that are not S-3 eligible may decide that a Reg A+ offering is an attractive alternative for raising up to $50 million. The benefits of Reg A+, even to an SEC reporting company, could be significant: freedom to “test the waters” with investors prior to launch, faster SEC review relative to registered offerings and preemption of state blue sky registration in Tier 2 offerings.

Ever since the Federal securities laws were enacted in 1933, all offers and sales of securities in the United States had to either be registered with the SEC or satisfy an exemption from registration. The commonly used private offering exemption, however, prohibited any act of general solicitation. The JOBS Act of 2012 JOBS Act signingcreated a new variation to the private offering exemption under Rule 506 of Regulation D that permits online offers and other acts of general solicitation, but issuers selling under this new Rule 506(c) may sell only to accredited investors and must use reasonable methods to verify investor status.

Starting today, companies will be permitted to offer and sell securities online to anyone, not just accredited investors, without SEC registration. This is pursuant to Title III of the JOBS Act and the final crowdfunding rules promulgated by the SEC called Regulation Crowdfunding.  The potential for Title III Crowdfundingequity crowdfunding is enormous and potentially disruptive.  It is believed that approximately 93% of the U.S. population consists of non-accredited investors who have an estimated $30 trillion stashed away in investment accounts.  If only one percent of that amount got redirected to equity crowdfunding, the resulting $300 billion dollars invested would be ten times larger than the VC industry.  Hence the potential.

The reality, however, is not as encouraging. In the interest of investor protection, Congress in JOBS Act Title III and the SEC in Regulation Crowdfunding created a heavily regulated and expensive regime that many fear will severely limit the prospects of equity crowdfunding.  The rules include a $1 million issuer cap, strict dollar limits on investors, disclosure requirements and funding portal liability, registration and gatekeeper obligations.

wefunderSEC registration for funding portals began on January 29. But as of last week, only five portals had completed the registration process: Wefunder Portal LLC, SI Portal LLC dba Seedinvest.com, CFS LLC dba seedinvestCrowdFundingSTAR.com, NextSeed US LLC and StartEngine Capital LLC.  Over 30 others are apparently awaiting approval.  Of the two best known and most successful non-equity crowdfunding portals, only Indiegogo has declared an intention to get in the Title III funding portal business; Kickstarter has so far declined.

The likely reason for the apparent lackluster funding portal activity so far is the restrictive regulatory regime referred to above, the burden of which falls disproportionately on funding portals. None of this should be a surprise.  Several key aspects of the crowdfunding rules were contentiously debated at the Congressional level and later during SEC rulemaking.  Opponents asserted that retail equity crowdfunding is an invitation for massive fraud against those who can least afford it and so believe Title III is a mistake.  Proponents advocated against several of the more restrictive rules but conceded on these points in order to get Title III passed.  And because the legislation itself was so prescriptive and granular, there was only room for marginal improvement in the final SEC rules relative to those proposed in the initial release.

Regrettably, there’s painful precedent for securities exemptions so restrictive that no one used them.  Regulation A allowed for a mini-public offering through a streamlined filing with the SEC.  But issuers were capped at $5 million and were forced to go through merit review in each state where they offered the securities.  The result:  hardly anyone used Reg A.  In recognition of this, Title IV of the JOBS Act reformed Reg A by increasing the cap to $50 million and, more importantly, preempting state blue sky review for so-called Tier II offerings which must satisfy investor protection requirements.

In an effort to prevent Title III from a fate similar to pre-reform Reg A, legislation has been introduced in Congress to increase the issuer cap, allow for special purpose vehicles, remove the $25 million asset cap on the exemption from the 500 shareholder SEC registration trigger and allow issuers to test the waters. See my previous blog post here on the proposed Fix Crowdfunding Act.

It may seem somewhat premature to advocate for reform when the rules have barely gone live. But given the time necessary for the legislative process to run its course, and inasmuch as the indications are already fairly clear that both issuers and funding portals remain skeptical about Title III crowdfunding, it makes sense to begin the process now of introducing necessary common sense reform of Title III.

The Regulation A amendments adopted by the Securities Exchange Commission on March 25 are Federal Registerbeing published tomorrow, April 20, in the Federal Register.  That means the final rules and form amendments will officially become effective on June 19, 2015 (by rule, 60 days after such publication).

The new Regulation A, referred to widely as Regulation A+, increases the offering cap from $5 million to $50 million with reasonable investor protection safeguards.  I previously summarized the regulation here.  The main reform features of the new regs are blue sky preemption for Tier II offerings, broader “testing the waters”, scaled disclosure and modified reporting.

Reg A+In theory, Reg A+ has the potential to provide growth companies with a viable alternative to a traditional S-1 IPO, albeit with a more cost effective runway and scaled disclosure than even the streamlined emerging growth company pathway under JOBS Act Title I.  It remains to be seen whether a sufficiently robust small public company ecosystem will develop to support companies that go public through Reg A+.

Importantly, new Reg A+ also reforms the resale rules in a significant respect by eliminating the requirement under old Reg A that issuers must have had net income from continuing operations in at least one of its last two fiscal years for affiliate resales to be permitted.  This is a sensible reform inasmuch as many emerging companies experience net losses for several years due to high research and development costs.  Absence of net income, by itself, is not a sufficient indicator of enhanced risk, and increasing selling stockholder access to avenues for liquidity will encourage investment in emerging companies.

The SEC yesterday issued its highly anticipated final rules amending Regulation A to allow issuers u-s-secto raise up to $50 million in any 12 month period through public offering techniques but without registration with the SEC or state blue sky authorities.  The 453 page rules release features a scaled disclosure regime to provide issuers with increased flexibility with regard to offering size and should lower the burden of fixed costs associated with conducting Reg A offerings as a percentage of proceeds. The new rules go into effect 60 days after they are published in the Federal Register.

Reg A has been one of the most rarely used exemptions for securities offerings because it’s been perceived as cost ineffective: the $5 million maximum is just not worth the burdens associated with blue sky registration and qualification requirements in each state where the securities are offered.  JOBS act 2Fixed costs such as legal and accounting fees have served as a disincentive to use the exemption for lower offering amounts. Congress addressed the problem in 2012 through Title IV of the JOBS Act, which required the SEC to amend Reg A by exempting from Securities Act registration certain securities offerings of up to $50 million in any 12 month period. The anticipated amendment to Reg A has been referred to affectionately by securities lawyers as Reg A+, since it’s intended to be a more useful version of the old Reg A.

Old Reg A

Old Reg A provides an exemption from Securities Act registration for offerings of up to $5 million in any 12-month period, including no more than $1.5 million in resales by selling stockholders.  Reg A transactions have been referred to as mini public offerings because they permit general solicitation and advertising (prohibited in private offerings other than accredited investor-only offerings under Rule 506(c) passed in September 2013) and require a mini-registration statement to be filed and reviewed by the SEC containing the offering statement to be delivered to offerees.  Most importantly, shares sold in old Reg A offerings are not “covered securities” under the National Securities Markets Improvement Act, meaning that issuers  must comply with the registration and qualification requirements of the blue sky laws of each state where the offering is made.  A Reg A issuer was allowed to “test the waters,” or communicate with potential investors to see if they might be interested in the offering, before it made the filing with the SEC (Form 1-A).  Finally, securities sold in Reg A offerings are not restricted securities, meaning they can be freely resold by non-affiliates of the issuer.

New Reg A

The final rules expand Reg A into two tiers: Tier 1 for securities offerings of up to $20 million; and Tier 2 for offerings of up to $50 million.  The new rules preserve, with some modifications, existing provisions regarding issuer eligibility, offering circular content, testing the waters and “bad actor” disqualification.  Tier 2 issuers are required to include audited financial statements in their offering documents and to file annual, semiannual, and current reports with the SEC.  Except when buying securities listed on a national securities exchange, purchasers in Tier 2 offerings must either be accredited investors or be subject to certain limitations on their investment.

The key provisions of the final rules are as follows:

Offering Limitations and Secondary Sales

The final rules establish two tiers of offerings:

  • Tier 1: annual offering limit of $20 million, including no more than $6 million on behalf of selling stockholders that are affiliates of the issuer.
  • Tier 2: annual offering limit of $50 million, including no more than $15 million on behalf of selling stockholders that are affiliates of the issuer.

Investment Limitation

The SEC’s objective with the tiered approach is to scale regulatory requirements based on offering size, to give issuers more flexibility in raising capital under Reg A and to provide appropriately tailored protections for investors in each tier. The rules impose additional disclosure requirements and investor protection provisions in Tier 2 offerings. Issuers seeking a smaller amount of capital (i.e., no more than $20 million) benefit from scaled disclosure. Although Tier 2 offerings will require enhanced disclosure, it’s possible that the reduction in information assymetry will lead to higher valuations. Thankfully, the final rules raised the Tier 1 offering cap to $20 million from the proposed $5 million. The increase in maximum offering size could also contribute to the development of intermediation services, such as market making, as well as analyst coverage, which could have a positive impact on investor participation and aftermarket liquidity of Reg A shares.

In addition, selling stockholders are limited to no more than 30% of the aggregate offering price in an issuer’s initial Reg A offering and any subsequently qualified Reg A offering within the first 12-month period following the date of qualification of the initial Reg A offering.

As mentioned above, the new rules contain certain investor protections in Tier 2 offerings. The proposed rules included a 10% investment limit for all investors in Tier 2 offerings.  The final rules limit non-accredited investors in Tier 2 offerings to purchases of no more than 10% of the greater of annual income or net worth (for natural persons) or the greater of annual revenue or net assets (for non-natural persons), as proposed.  In response to commentator concerns, the Tier 2 investment limit does not apply to accredited investors or to securities that will be listed on a national securities exchange.  This is a sensible approach, inasmuch as accredited investors, due to their level of income or net worth, are more likely to be able to withstand losses from undiversified exposure to an individual offering, and there’s a higher level of investor protection with issuers required to meet the listing standards of a national securities exchange and become subject to ongoing Exchange Act reporting.

Treatment under Section 12(g)

Section 12(g) of the Exchange Act requires that an issuer with total assets exceeding $10 million and a class of equity securities held of record by either 2,000 persons, or 500 persons who are not accredited investors, register such class of securities with the SEC. In its proposal release, the SEC did not propose to exempt Reg A securities from mandatory registration under Section 12(g), but solicited comment on the issue.  Some commentators questioned the extent to which Reg A securities would be held in street name through brokers, which the proposal mentioned as a factor that could potentially limit the impact of not proposing an exemption from Section 12(g).

The final rules conditionally exempt Tier 2 securities from the provisions of Section 12(g) provided the issuer (i) remains subject to, and is current in (as of fiscal year end), its Reg A periodic reporting obligations, (ii) engages the services of a transfer agent registered with the SEC under the Exchange Act, and (iii) meets requirements similar to those for “smaller reporting companies” (public float of less than $75 million or, in the absence of a public float, annual revenues of less than $50 million).  The transfer agent condition will provide added comfort that stockholder records and secondary trades will be handled accurately.

Offering Statement

The final rules require issuers to file offering statements with the SEC electronically on EDGAR, but permit non-public submission of offering statements and amendments for review by SEC staff before filing so long as all such documents are publicly filed not later than 21 days before qualification.  The new rules eliminate the Model A (Question-and-Answer) disclosure format under Part II of Form 1-A.

Testing the Waters

The new rules permit issuers to “test the waters” with, or solicit interest in a potential offering testing the watersfrom, the general public either before or after the filing of the offering statement, so long as any solicitation materials used after publicly filing the offering statement are preceded or accompanied by a preliminary offering circular or contain a notice informing potential investors where and how the most current preliminary offering circular can be obtained. Solicitation materials remain subject to the antifraud and other civil liability provisions of the federal securities laws.

Continuing Disclosure Obligations

Reg A currently requires issuers to file a Form 2-A with the SEC to report sales and the termination of sales made under Reg A every six months after qualification and within 30 calendar days after the termination, completion or final sale of securities in the offering. The final rules eliminate Form 2-A.  In its place, the rules require Tier 1 issuers to provide information about sales in such offerings and to update certain issuer information by electronically filing a Form 1-Z exit report with the SEC not later than 30 calendar days after termination or completion of an offering.  The rules require Tier 2 issuers to file electronically with the SEC on EDGAR annual and semiannual reports, as well as current event reports.

Application of Blue Sky Laws

The final rules preempt state registration and qualification requirements for Tier 2 offerings but preserve these requirements for Tier 1 offerings, consistent with state registration of Reg A offerings of up to $5 million under existing rules.  The SEC had originally proposed to preempt state regulation with respect to (i) all offerees in Reg A offerings and (ii) all purchasers in Tier 2 offerings.  The proposal to preempt blue sky requirements with respect to all offerees in a Reg A offering was intended to allow issuers relying on Reg A to communicate with potential investors via the internet and social media without concern that these communications might trigger registration requirements under state law.

The issue of state law preemption generated a great deal of public commentary.  To address commenter concerns and avoid potential confusion about the application of the preemption provisions in Tier 1 offerings, the final definition of “qualified purchaser” does not include offerees in Tier 1 offerings.  This is unfortunate.  In order to create an attractive alternative to IPOs, Congress mandated preemption for “qualified purchasers”, which it defined as any purchaser in a (new) Reg A offering. As made clear in the 2012 General Accounting Office Report, a primary reason Reg A has been seldom used is the delay, cost and uncertainty of divergent state review of offerings. Perhaps the SEC should have preempted state regulation of Reg A resales as well. One of the greatest benefits of a Reg A offering versus a Rule 506 offering is that the securities sold in the former will be freely tradeable immediately upon closing of the offering. Without clear federal preemption of blue-sky laws governing the resale of Reg A shares, however, investors may be concerned about their ability to resell their shares which will reduce their willingness to purchase these shares in the first place.

Last month, the SEC released its Final Report on the 2012 SEC Government-Business Forum on Small Business Capital Formation, the SEC’s annual forum to address perceived unnecessary impediments to small business capital formation. Participants typically include small business executives, VCs, government officials, trade association representatives, lawyers, accountants, academics and small business advocates.  The Report contains a prioritized list of 35 recommendations collectively made by the Forum’s participants (not necessarily endorsed by the SEC), many of which were addressed to the SEC’s JOBS Act rulemaking efforts .

Receiving the most attention by far was equity crowdfunding, which was the subject of 11 separate recommendations including the six with the highest priority.  Other areas of concern in order of priority included the elimination of the prohibition on general solicitation and advertising from “accredited investor only” Rule 506 sales, definition of “accredited investor”, small public offerings under so-called “Regulation A+”, “bad boy” disqualifications from Reg D offerings, and “micro-offering” exemption for non-reporting companies.

Here are some of the highlights of the Report’s recommendations:

  •  Crowdfunding:  Simplify disclosure rules, taking into account size and stage of development of the issuer (including whether the issuer is a start-up); flexibility on financial statement rules, including raising the trigger for audited financials; permitting concurrent offerings on same terms to accredited investors (with no investment limit) in excess of the $1 million limit; investor self-certification of investment limits; and safe harbors for platforms and other crowdfunding players.

 

  • Accredited Investor-Only Private Offerings:  Safe harbors, including presumption of accreditation if investor meets SEC established minimum investment threshold; sliding scale of steps to verify accreditation based on facts and circumstances surrounding offering, e.g., issuer’s familiarity and pre-existing relationship with the potential investor.

 

  • Definition of “Accredited Investor”: Retain current income and net worth levels in definition of “accredited investor”.

 

  • Reg A+ Small Offerings: Make a Reg A+ filed security a “covered security” (i.e., state registration requirements do not apply); and scaled disclosure.

 

  • “Bad boy” disqualifications from Reg D offerings: Target true bad actors without imposing a disqualification so broad as to affect persons who may not be true bad actors.

 

  • “Micro-offering” exemption:  Adopt true “micro-offering” exemption for non-reporting companies with only minimal conditions (e.g., “friends and family” offerings well below $1 million crowdfunding threshold).

 

  • Smaller Reporting Companies:  Increase maximum amount of public float in the definition of “smaller reporting company” from $75 million to $250 million.

 

  • Auditor Attestation Exemption:   Expand SOX 404(b) exemption to companies with less than $250 million of public float and possibly up to $500 million of public float.