§78mm General Exemptive Authority

Summary

The Commission can exempt people, securities, or transactions—or whole groups of them—from parts of this law. It can do that by rule or order. Exemptions can be conditional or unconditional. The Commission must only give exemptions when they are needed for the public interest and still protect investors. The Commission must set the rules for how to get an exemption and can choose not to consider an application. The Commission cannot use this power to exempt anything from section 78o–5 or from the definitions in paragraphs (42), (43), (44), or (45) of section 78c(a) for purposes of section 78o–5. Unless it is clearly allowed elsewhere, the Commission also may not grant exemptions for amendments made by subtitle B of the Wall Street Transparency and Accountability Act of 2010 with respect to paragraphs (65), (66), (68), (69), (70), (71), (72), (73), (74), (75), (76), and (79) of section 78c(a) and sections 78j–2(a), 78j–2(b), 78j–2(c), 78m–1, 78o–10, and 78q–1(g) through 78q–1(l). The Commission does have exemptive authority for security-based swaps like the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has for swaps, including under section 6(c) of title 7.