By Cydney Posner

In March, the SEC began a retrospective review of offering and reporting requirements, and in July, President Obama issued an order recommending that independent regulatory agencies revisit existing regulations to see how best to modernize, streamline, strengthen or repeal them, as appropriate. The order also recommends that each independent agency "develop and release to the public a plan, consistent with law and reflecting its resources and regulatory priorities and processes, under which the agency will periodically review its existing significant regulations to determine whether any such regulations should be modified, streamlined, expanded, or repealed so as to make the agency's regulatory program more effective or less burdensome in achieving the regulatory objectives." The SEC is now seeking public comment on the process it should use to conduct those retrospective reviews.  In that regard (and aside from the fact that Congress would need to act), can anyone justify the continued existence of (in my view, the entirely vestigial) Section 16?

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