DealLawyers.com Blog

In yesterday’s fee rate advisory, the SEC announced that filing fees will be going up after October 1st (or whenever Congress approves the SEC’s budget, which historically is significantly later than October 1st) to $55.80 per million from $39.30 per million of securities registered with the SEC.

This is a 42% hike, after a 28% hike last year. Before this period, there had not been a hike for quite some time. Note that there is no mention in the SEC’s press release of a reason for the hike. Actually, the press release doesn’t even mention that this is a hike from last year (but we still remember how Chairman Cox was quite proud of the steep drop in ’06, with a lot of fanfare in that press release). You may recall that the SEC’s fee rates aren’t related to the amount of funding available to the SEC; instead, the money goes to the US Treasury.

Coming Soon: SEC’s Proposal on Cross-Border Rules

I wonder who put the SEC’s Office of Public Affairs up to issuing this odd press release Tuesday to announce that Corp Fin has made its recommendations to the Commission regarding proposals on the cross-border tender, exchange offer and business combination rules? That’s a new one – and I doubt we shall see a press release each time a rulemaking is sent to the 10th floor for consideration.