The Acting SEC Chairman announced regulatory priorities designed to help companies raise capital, widen investment options available to retail investors, and reduce regulatory burdens on smaller public companies.

On February 24, 2025, in a speech to the Florida Bar’s 41st Annual Federal Securities Institute and M&A Conference, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC or the Commission) Acting Chairman Mark T. Uyeda outlined key SEC priorities aimed at fostering “innovation, job creation, and economic growth” in both the public and private markets.

Acting Chairman Uyeda stated his first priority is for the Commission to “return[] to its narrow mission to facilitate capital formation, while protecting investors and maintaining fair, orderly and efficient markets.” To that end, Acting Chairman Uyeda highlighted certain recent changes initiated by the Commission including removing and rescinding certain crypto-related staff bulletins, reassessing litigation regarding the Commission’s climate-related disclosure rule, and exempting certain information from being collected by the Consolidated Audit Trail.

Consistent with this theme of facilitating capital formation, Acting Chairman Uyeda has requested that SEC staff explore ways to change regulations to improve opportunities not only for entrepreneurs to raise money, but also for unaccredited retail investors to make investments in startups, small businesses, and private funds. According to Acting Chairman Uyeda, on the fundraising side, regulations “must be relatively straightforward to comply with and not impose a disproportionate amount of compliance costs.”

With respect to retail investors, Acting Chairman Uyeda has asked the SEC staff to consider how to “enable greater retail investor participation in the private market,” which could include changing income and net-worth thresholds for individuals to qualify as accredited investors, introducing non-financial ways to qualify as an accredited investor, setting different thresholds if an investment is through a pooled investment vehicle, or allowing unaccredited investors to invest a certain amount in private offerings over the course of a year.

Acting Chairman Uyeda stated that investor protection cannot be achieved through “paternalistic policies.” Rather, he endorsed the view that investors can assess risks for themselves and that SEC regulations should not have the effect of depriving investors of the opportunity to accumulate wealth and diversify their portfolios through investments in private companies and private funds. Acting Chairman Uyeda further noted that any changes to this standard involving pooled investment vehicles should also take into account potential changes under the Investment Company Act of 1940 that would permit more retail investors to invest through private funds.

With respect to the public markets, Acting Chairman Uyeda expressed a desire for the SEC to “make IPOs attractive again.” To that end, he has asked SEC staff to review what types of newly public companies should qualify as emerging growth companies (EGCs) and for how long, and whether EGCs should be permitted “an on-ramp to comply with certain existing disclosure obligations.” For those companies that are already public, Acting Chairman Uyeda expressed that the Commission should reconsider thresholds for accelerated and large accelerated filers, consider whether to realign the smaller reporting company and non-accelerated filer definitions, and review the associated disclosure obligations so that the framework is appropriately scaled for today’s public companies and avoids overlapping definitions to prevent unnecessarily complex and expensive regulatory regime.

Acting Chairman Uyeda also highlighted that the Commission’s enforcement work has not stopped. In particular, he noted that the Commission continues to bring charges for insider trading, breaches of fiduciary duty by investment advisers, and inflated financial performance, likely foreshadowing the areas that will continue to be a priority for the Division of Enforcement under the new administration.

Latham & Watkins is closely monitoring SEC developments under the Trump administration and will continue to provide updates and guidance.