Senate Banking Committee to tackle
capital formation
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[March 09, 2017]
By Sarah N. Lynch and Amanda Becker
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Senate panel
on Thursday is poised to approve with bipartisan support a raft of bills
aimed at spurring capital formation, marking its first step this year
toward modernizing market rules that critics have said are outdated and
get in the way of business expansion and investment.
The move is part of Congress' ongoing efforts to streamline the U.S.
financial sector and is largely separate from U.S. President Donald
Trump's push to repeal or replace regulations he says could impede
economic growth.
The Senate Banking Committee, led by Chairman Mike Crapo, is slated to
send to the Senate floor five bills, with some Democrats expected to
join with their Republican colleagues to vote for and co-sponsor several
of the measures.
The bills would make a variety of changes to the Securities and Exchange
Commission's regulations, such as raise the dollar amount of stock
options that private companies can award employees in a given year from
$5 million to $10 million, and ease restrictions to allow brokers to
publish research on the global $3.7 trillion exchange-traded fund
market.
They would also boost the number of people that can invest in venture
capital funds without triggering certain federal rules, subject mutual
funds in Puerto Rico to the same rules that funds already face on the
U.S. mainland and credit stock exchanges back money for any fees and
assessments they may have overpaid to the SEC in the last decade.
The hearing will mark the first time since the November election that
the Republican-led Senate Banking Committee has convened to consider
financial legislation.
The U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee,
meanwhile, is also gearing up to boost capital-raising via a more
comprehensive rewrite of the 2010 Dodd Frank financial reform
legislation.
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Chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee
Mike Crapo (R-ID) hearing listens to testimony from Federal Reserve
Chairman Janet Yellen on the “Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to
the Congress” on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., February 14,
2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
Trump's choice to lead the SEC, Wall Street deal making attorney Jay
Clayton, has previously privately discussed ideas with Trump on how
to help spur capital formation.
All of the bills slated for consideration by the panel on Thursday
have been considered in prior congressional years, but never passed
into law.
Some of the bills also have companions introduced in the House this
year.
(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Andrew Hay)
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