The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Thursday extended the public on-ramp for small companies that take longer than five years to generate $100 million in annual revenue, as well as some of the business development companies that invest in them.

Quarterly financial reporting for public companies is costly and ties up senior management and board members for several days before each quarterly earnings report is released and the 10-Q is filed. Could this process be made more efficient and less frequent, such as a semi-annual filing like many reporting companies based in Europe have implemented? That was one of the questions considered by a roundtable hosted by the SEC's Division of Corporation Finance where key stakeholders delved into the impact of short-termism on U.S. capital markets and whether the SEC's current reporting system needs to be changed to ease administrative and other burdens on reporting companies.

Quarterly financial reporting for public companies is costly and ties up senior management and board members for several days before each quarterly earnings report is released and the 10-Q is filed. Could this process be made more efficient and less frequent such as a semi-annual filing like many reporting companies based in Europe have implemented? 

With a new year, old impatience is growing among small companies and investors eager to see the potential of federally sanctioned crowdfunding take off. In January, biotech hotbed Massachusetts, as well as Oregon and Maine, joined a growing list of states taking matters into their own hands. Irritated by the SEC's sauntering approach to finalizing proposed rules it drafted to implement crowdfunding provisions in the 2012 Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, they joined a growing roster of states that have adopted their own rules for governing the offerings. (See BioWorld Insight, Aug. 11, 2014.) Massachusetts' new rules, like all...

It’s been 16 years since I first reported in BioWorld Today that David Blech was charged with securities fraud. In April 1997, I reached him at his New York office a few days after his arraignment in a U.S. District Court. Though he wouldn’t comment on the case, he chided me repeatedly for using the word “arrested,” insisting that I tell our readers he “appeared voluntarily” for the arraignment, still worried about his reputation ‑ as if it wasn’t already rubbish. Frankly, I’m satisfied he’s going to serve time. Angry that our judicial system can’t penalize him with a longer...