The safe harbor would offer relief from certain requirements of FINRA’s research rules, but significant compliance obligations and questions remain.

On April 12, 2017, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc. (FINRA) published Regulatory Notice 17-16 (RN 17-16) requesting comment on proposed amendments to FINRA Rule 2241 (the Equity Research Rule) and FINRA Rule 2242 (the Debt Research Rule, and together with the Equity Research Rule, the Research Rules). The proposed amendments would provide for a limited safe harbor for certain written analysis prepared by sales and trading or principal trading personnel but which, depending on its content, may rise to the level of a “research report” under the Research Rules (the Proposed Safe Harbor).