Americans for Financial Reform is a coalition of dozens of consumer, labor and advocacy groups including AARP, the AFL-CIO and Consumers Union.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, had sought to amend the bill during the banking committee hearing by removing a provision that provides legal protection to brokers who publish research reports about ETFs in which they have a financial interest. But she withdrew the measure.
At a Capitol Hill hearing in 2015, University of Mississippi law professor Mercer E. Bullard said the bill “virtually destroys the entire fabric of legal accountability that would otherwise apply to ETF research reports.”
The SEC in 2004 had considered extending safe-harbor protections to ETF research reports, requesting public comments on the issue but declining to adopt a rule.
The bill directs the SEC to revise its regulations to create a safe harbor for ETF research reports and to declare that the reports “shall not be deemed to constitute an offer for sale nor an offer to sell a security that is the subject of the offering pursuant to a registration statement” filed by an issuer.