JOBS Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I wish to discuss our bipartisan efforts to pass a crowd fund ing amendment that provides needed flexibility but also ensures that crowd fund ing has sufficient oversight and investor protections. I was proud to work with Senators Merkley and Brown in crafting this bipartisan proposal. The Senate passed our amendment by a 64 to 35 margin. The House of Representatives subsequently passed our language when it considered the JOBS legislation earlier this week.
As the Securities and Exchange Commission works to implement this new law, it is my hope that it will recognize that the funding portal registration process is meant to be more streamlined and less burdensome than traditional broker-dealer registration. Given the size of the investments that are likely to occur in crowd fund ing, the SEC should work to provide an appropriate level of oversight without making it cost-prohibitive to become a funding portal.
Funding portals should be allowed to organize and sort information based on certain criteria. This will make it easier for individuals to find the types of companies in which they can potentially invest. This type of capability--commonly referred to as curation--should not constitute investment advice or recommendations, which the law otherwise prohibits.
Similarly, funding portals should be allowed to engage in due diligence services. This would include providing templates and forms, which will enable issuers to comply with the underlying statute. In crafting this law, it was our intent to allow funding portals to provide such services.
We also sought to provide the Securities and Exchange Commission sufficient flexibility to promulgate rules to ensure individuals have the necessary information and protections to make informed investment decisions. It is my hope that the Commission will exercise such discretion judiciously and will not create a regulatory regime that is too cumbersome and expensive for funding portals to operate or for issuers to sell their securities. In preparing the law, we sought to find the right balance, preserving basic investor protections while ensuring enough entrepreneurial flexibility to help this promising medium take off for the good of our economy. I am hopeful that the Commission will respect this balance as it moves forward to implement this law.
Finally, we provided 270 days for the Commission to implement this new law. I hope the SEC will make every effort possible to meet this deadline.
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