Regulation D (SEC)

In the United States under the Securities Act of 1933, any offer to sell securities must either be registered with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or meet certain qualifications to exempt them from such registration. Regulation D (or Reg D) contains the rules providing exemptions from the registration requirements, allowing some companies to offer and sell their securities without having to register the securities with the SEC. A Regulation D offering is intended to make access to the capital markets possible for small companies that could not otherwise bear the costs of a normal SEC registration. Reg D may also refer to an investment strategy, mostly associated with hedge funds, based upon the same regulation. The regulation is found under Title 17 of the Code of Federal Regulations, part 230, Sections 501 through 508. The legal citation is 17 C.F.R. §230.501 et seq.

On July 10, 2013, the SEC issued new final regulations allowing public advertising and solicitation of Regulation D offers to accredited investors.

Reg D is composed of various rules prescribing the qualifications needed to meet exemptions from registration requirements for the issuance of securities. Rule 501 of Reg D contains definitions that apply to the rest of Reg D. Rule 502 contains the general conditions that must be met to take advantage of the exemptions under Regulation D. Generally speaking, these conditions are (1) that all sales within a certain time period that are part of the same Reg D offering must be "integrated", meaning they must be treated as one offering, (2) information and disclosures must be provided, (3) there must be no "general solicitation", and (4) that the securities being sold contain restrictions on their resale. Rule 503 requires issuers to file a Form D with the SEC when they make an offering under Regulation D. In Rules 504 and 505, Regulation D implements §3(b) of the Securities Act of 1933 (also referred to as the '33 Act), which allows the SEC to exempt issuances of under $5,000,000 from registration. It also provides (in Rule 506) a "safe harbor" under §4(2) of the '33 Act (which says that non-public offerings are exempt from the registration requirement). In other words, if an issuer complies with the requirements of Rule 506, it can be assured that its offering is "non-public," and thus that it is exempt from registration. Rule 507 penalizes issuers who do not file the Form D, as required by Rule 503. Rule 508 provides the guidelines under which the SEC enforces Regulation D against issuers.

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