On September 4, 2025, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced the publication of its Spring 2025 Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions, which sets forth its rulemaking priorities for the next several months.
In a statement, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins noted that the agenda represents the SEC’s “renewed focus on supporting innovation, capital formation, market efficiency and investor protection.”
Many of the items on the agenda attempt to address issues that have been identified as priorities in previous statements by Chairman Atkins and other commissioners, such as the simplification of the capital raising process, providing greater investor access to private businesses, and reducing disclosure burdens and the offer and sale of crypto assets.
Notably, the agenda removes several topics that had been on the regulatory agendas during prior SEC administrations, which Chairman Atkins stated did “not align with the goal that regulation should be smart, effective, and appropriately tailored within the confines of [the SEC’s] statutory authority.”
The items that may have the largest impact on public companies include:
- Shareholder proposal modernization: The SEC is considering proposing rule amendments to modernize the requirements of Rule 14a-8 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to reduce compliance obligations for companies and to reflect developments since the rule was last amended.
- Rule 144 safe harbor: The SEC may repropose amendments to Rule 144 under the Securities Act of 1933 – which creates a nonexclusive safe harbor for the resale of restricted or control securities – that would broaden the availability of the safe harbor.
- Enhancement of emerging growth company accommodations and simplification of filer status for reporting companies: The SEC may propose rule amendments to expand the accommodations for emerging growth companies and simplify filer status categorization to reduce compliance burdens for many public companies.
- Shelf registration modernization: The SEC may propose rule amendments to further facilitate capital formation and ease the compliance burdens for public companies.
- Updating the exempt offering pathways: The SEC may propose rules to facilitate capital formation by simplifying the pathways to raise capital and provide greater investor access to private businesses.
- Rationalization of disclosure practices: The SEC may propose rule amendments to “rationalize disclosure practices to facilitate material disclosure by companies and shareholders’ access to that information.”
These proposed rules are anticipated to be issued by April 2026.
The agenda also identifies areas in which the SEC is seeking public input before proposing new rules or rule amendments. Chairman Atkins notes that in the wake of the Am. Sec. Ass’n v. SEC decision by the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, the SEC may invite public comment regarding the Consolidated Audit Trail, citing cost and data security concerns.
Likewise, the agenda notes that the SEC is already seeking public comment on the definition of foreign private issuer (FPI), which we discussed in a previous blog post, with the goal of addressing significant changes in the global capital markets and the characteristics of FPIs since SEC rules related to FPIs were first adopted.
Crypto assets
The agenda includes recommendations for proposed rules related to the offer and sale of crypto assets, including certain exemptions and safe harbors. The proposed rules could help to clarify the regulatory framework for such assets and provide clarity to participants in the crypto assets market. Another area for potential regulation of crypto assets includes rule amendments to account for the trading of crypto assets on alternative trading systems and national securities exchanges. These proposed rules are also anticipated to be issued by April 2026.
Although the agenda provides a timeframe for the rulemaking on these topics, there is no assurance that any of the proposed rules will be issued by April 2026. We will continue to monitor these developments.
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