Recently, the SEC’s Office of the Investor Advocate released its Report on Activities for Fiscal Year 2023, which is required to be delivered to Congress. The Report highlights the work of the Office on investor protection issues. The Report discusses the Office’s work relating to its policy-oriented stakeholder and investor testing for innovative and effective regulation (POSITIER) initiative, which aims to provide data and research on how investors interact with and are affected by SEC policy. This group conducted extensive research on investor comprehension of registered index-linked annuities (RILAs), which led to policy recommendations that informed the SEC’s recently proposed amendments to its rules relating to RILAs (a separate post will follow on RILA related matters). The Office also monitored developments in the private markets given that the private markets have continued to expand considerably. The Office conducted outreach to solicit the views of investors on the accredited investor definition. The Office also sought out information regarding offerings made in reliance on Regulation D. Finally, the report includes research findings about investment advisory agreements use of mandatory arbitration clauses including suggested approaches to mitigate the abusive use of these provisions. The Report can be accessed here: https://www.sec.gov/files/2023-oiad-annual-report.pdf.

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