PANews reported on May 19 that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released two proposed rule revisions to significantly simplify registration, offering, and ongoing disclosure requirements for publicly traded companies. Regarding registration, more smaller-cap companies will be able to use shelf offerings and enjoy the registration and communication flexibility currently limited to "mature large-cap issuers." Brokerages will also be able to provide research coverage for more companies, and all registered offerings will be exempt from state-level securities registration requirements. Regarding disclosure, the SEC proposes raising the threshold for "large accelerated filers" from a public offering market capitalization of $700 million to $2 billion and providing a "60-month IPO grace period" for post-IPO companies, during which they will not be considered large accelerated filers regardless of market capitalization. Other companies will be uniformly classified as non-accelerated filers, enjoying most of the disclosure exemptions applicable to small and emerging companies, and will be exempt from internal control auditor attestation obligations. The approximately 18% of companies with the smallest assets will also receive additional extensions for filing annual and quarterly reports. The comment period is 60 days after the rules are published in the Federal Register.