On August 24, 2022, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) released its draft strategic plan for fiscal years 2022 to 2026 (the “Strategic Plan”). The Strategic Plan establishes the SEC’s three primary goals for the next four years:
- Protecting working families against fraud, manipulation, and misconduct;
- Developing and implementing a robust regulatory framework that keeps pace with evolving markets, business models, and technologies; and
- Supporting a skilled workforce that is diverse, equitable, inclusive, and is fully equipped to advance agency objectives.
The Strategic Plan outlines different ways the SEC plans to meet each of these goals. The SEC plans to enhance the use of market and industry data to prevent, detect, and prosecute improper behavior and to modernize the design, delivery, and content of disclosure so investors can access consistent, comparable, and material information needed to make informed investment decisions. The SEC aims to update its existing rules and approaches to reflect evolving technologies, business models, and capital markets and to focus on risk management and cost efficiency.
We expect that the Strategic Plan will guide the SEC’s rulemaking over the next four years. The focus on keeping the agency’s regulatory framework up-to-date with evolving markets and technologies points to their ambition of creating a framework for regulating the offer and sale of digital assets. The public comment period for the Strategic Plan will be open for 30 days following publication in the Federal Register.
If you have any questions about the SEC’s Strategic Plan, please contact a member of Harter Secrest & Emery’s Securities and Capital Markets group at 585.232.6500 or 716.853.1616.