Rules of Practice

The Securities and Exchange Commission is adopting amendments to its Rules of Practice to formalize new policies designed to improve the timeliness of its administrative proceedings. The changes include specifying in all orders instituting proceedings a maximum time period for completion by an administrative law judge of the initial decision in the proceeding, establishing policies disfavoring requests that would delay proceedings once instituted and creating time limits for the negotiation and submission of offers of settlement to the Commission. The Commission has taken additional steps to reduce delay in its internal deliberations on appeals from hearing officer's initial decisions and from final determinations of self-regulatory organizations and, accordingly amends current guidelines for issuance of Commission opinions.