Growing Past Emerging Growth: Five Years After the Jobs Act

On April 5, 2012, four years after the 2008 financial crisis and in the midst of a still-sluggish economy, President Barack Obama signed into law the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act. Passed with bipartisan support, the legislation was intended to encourage the growth of small businesses by making it easier for them to go public. The law allows smaller companies that file for an initial public offering (IPO) under the newly created Emerging Growth Company (EGC) status to use a streamlined registration process and, in their initial years as a public company, to disclose less information publicly than larger companies are required to report. 

The paper, entitled “Growing Past Emerging Growth: Five Years after the JOBS Act,” discusses the differences in disclosure requirements for these companies and ways to overcome complications and challenges to maturing their approach to governance, disclosure, communications, and regulatory compliance.