Odaily Planet Daily News: On Wednesday, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Paul S. Atkins testified before the Congressional Committee on Financial Services, outlining his priorities and emphasizing that the SEC will continue to focus on protecting investors, maintaining fair and efficient markets, and promoting capital formation, while maintaining a balance between regulation of traditional markets and digital assets, including:
1. Reduce corporate compliance costs: Point out that listed companies spend as much as $2.7 billion annually on annual report disclosures, emphasizing the need to streamline, modernize, and focus on substantive information to make disclosures more useful and easier to understand.
2. Support IPO and capital formation: Propose three measures—disclosure centered on substantive information, depoliticization of shareholder meetings, and providing alternative dispute resolution mechanisms for companies—to incentivize innovation and protect investors.
3. Promote regulation of digital assets: The SEC and CFTC are collaborating on Project Crypto to develop a token classification system, provide clear regulatory guidance, and consider exemptions for on-chain transactions and activities. Support Congress in advancing the CLARITY Act to establish a federal framework for the crypto market.
4. Review of traditional regulatory tools: A comprehensive assessment of the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) system has been conducted, and measures have been taken to reduce annual costs by approximately $920 million.
5. Strengthen investor protection and enforcement: Return to the fundamental mission, focus on cracking down on fraud, insider trading, financial misconduct, and cross-border market manipulation, and establish a cross-border enforcement task force to suspend trading of stocks of multiple Asia-Pacific issuers to prevent manipulation.