SEC Rolls Out “POSITIER” -

The SEC’s Office of the Investor Advocate used a recent March 9, 2017 open meeting and related “Evidence Summit” to announce its new investor research initiative, “POSITIER.”1 This new acronym represents: Policy Oriented Stakeholder and Investor Testing for Innovative and Effective Regulation.

The initiative represents a response to two themes that have frequently arisen in connection with the subject of securities regulation: (a) are U.S. securities laws and regulations appropriately tailored to meet investor needs; and (b) do the investor protection aspects of these laws and regulations justify the costs that they impose? Both questions are top of mind for participants in the structured products market who expend significant efforts to make their disclosure documents and other marketing materials user-friendly for retail investors.