Securities and Exchange Commission 2018 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This document makes technical corrections to several amendments to Form N-1A, which the Commission adopted as part of three rulemakings: Investment Company Reporting Modernization, which was published in the Federal Register on November 18, 2016; Optional Internet Availability of Investment Company Shareholder Reports, which was published in the Federal Register on June 22, 2018; and Investment Company Liquidity Disclosure, which was published in the Federal Register on July 10, 2018. This document is being published to correct the paragraph designations that appeared in the amendatory instructions preceding certain of the form amendments that the Commission adopted as part of each of these rulemakings. This document makes technical corrections only to the paragraph designations that appear in the amendatory instructions preceding these form amendments. This document does not make any substantive changes (i.e., changes except corrections to typographical errors) to the text of the form amendments themselves.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is proposing rule and form amendments that are intended to help investors make informed investment decisions regarding variable annuity and variable life insurance contracts. The proposal would modernize disclosures by using a layered disclosure approach designed to provide investors with key information relating to the contract's terms, benefits, and risks in a concise and more reader-friendly presentation, with access to more detailed information available online and electronically or in paper format on request. The proposed new rule would permit a person to satisfy its prospectus delivery obligations under the Securities Act of 1933 for a variable annuity or variable life insurance contract by sending or giving a summary prospectus to investors and making the statutory prospectus available online. The proposed rule also would consider a person to have met its prospectus delivery obligations for any portfolio companies associated with a variable annuity or variable life insurance contract if the portfolio company prospectuses are posted online. In addition, we are proposing amendments to the registration forms for variable annuity and variable life insurance contracts to update and enhance the disclosures to investors in these contracts, and to implement the proposed summary prospectus framework. We are further proposing to require variable contracts to use the Inline eXtensible Business Reporting Language (``Inline XBRL'') format for the submission of certain required disclosures in the variable contract statutory prospectus. We are also proposing certain technical and conforming amendments to our rules and forms, including amendments to rules relating to variable life insurance contracts, as well as rescission of certain related rules and forms. Lastly, we are seeking comments regarding parallel amendments to rules governing mutual fund summary prospectuses and registration forms applicable to other types of registered investment companies.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is publishing a list of rules to be reviewed pursuant to Section 610 of the Regulatory Flexibility Act. The list is published to provide the public with notice that these rules are scheduled for review by the agency and to invite public comment on whether the rules should be continued without change, or should be amended or rescinded to minimize any significant economic impact of the rules upon a substantial number of such small entities.