SEC Amends Electronic Recordkeeping Requirements

The SEC has issued a final rule, Electronic Recordkeeping Requirements for Broker-Dealers, Security-Based Swap Dealers, and Major Security-Based Swap Participants. The Commission’s objective in issuing the final rule is to “modernize recordkeeping requirements and make the requirements adaptable to new technologies in electronic recordkeeping.”

The final rule’s amendments (1) add an audit-trail alternative in which “electronic records can be preserved in a manner that permits the recreation of an original record if it is altered, over-written, or erased” and (2) “require broker-dealers and all types of SBSDs and MSBSPs to produce electronic records to securities regulators in a reasonably usable electronic format.”

The final rule will become effective 60 days after the date of its publication in the Federal Register. For more information, see the press release, fact sheet, and statements by SEC Chair Gary Gensler and Commissioners Caroline Crenshaw, Jaime Lizárraga, Hester Peirce, and Mark Uyeda on the SEC’s Web site.