(Washington)

The House Financial Services Committee sent a very strong message to president-elect Joe Biden this week: dissolve Reg BI. Chaired by Maxine Waters, the committee said that the Trump administration had "taken several actions that have eroded shareholder rights, established regulatory barriers to shareholder engagement, increased issuer involvement in the proxy voting advice process and stripped away fundamental investor protections, including safeguards around private markets, where investors have few protections”, and that Biden should take care of the issue by getting rid of Reg BI, and separately, CRS altogether.

FINSUM: Industry experts seem to agree that the Biden Administration is unlikely to completely unwind Reg BI, if only because getting a new rule through would require Congressional approval. While that could still happen depending on how the Georgia runoffs go, it seems more likely the new SEC team would just employ very strict enforcement of Reg BI.