Letter to the SEC on Enhancement of Emerging Growth Company Accommodations and Simplification of Filer Status for Reporting Companies

Dear Ms. Countryman:

The American Bankers Association (ABA) appreciates the opportunity to comment on the Securities and Exchange Commission's proposed rule "Enhancement of Emerging Growth Company Accommodations and Simplification of Filer Status for Reporting Companies" ("Proposal"). The Proposal would raise the public float threshold from $700 million to $2 billion and revise the seasoning requirements from 12 calendar months to 5 years for large accelerated filers, while extending existing accommodations and scaled disclosure requirements to all non-accelerated filers. It also would simplify the current filer status framework by classifying issuers as either large accelerated filers or non-large accelerated filers. ABA supports the Commission's efforts to reduce complexity in the filer status regime and to apply disclosure and reporting requirements more consistently based on a simplified classification framework.

Extending Accommodations Provides Meaningful Relief

ABA strongly supports the Commission's objective of tailoring reporting requirements to the size and complexity of public companies. Expanding access to scaled disclosure accommodations and reducing unnecessary compliance costs to all non-large accelerated filers provides important benefits for smaller public companies.

Eliminating the auditor attestation requirement for internal control over financial reporting non-large accelerated filers would be especially meaningful for SEC Issuer community banks with less than $5 billion in assets where the cost of compliance is often significant relative to size and resources. Such relief also would complement the FDIC’s recent action to increase the 12 CFR Part 363 threshold for an independent public accountant's attestation on the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting from $1 billion to $5 billion in total assets, with future indexing for inflation.

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