Article
SEC outlook: Regulatory and financial reporting updates from Q2 2025
July 31, 2025 · Authored by Porter Loud
Capital markets continue to react to the steps taken by the Trump administration to advance its regulatory agenda, including shakeups at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Whether it’s the impact of tariffs or tax reform, public companies are faced with a dynamic financial reporting environment as we move into the back half of 2025.
Learn more about what these changes mean for public companies below.
What’s happening at the SEC?
On April 21, 2025, Paul Atkins was sworn into office as the new chairman of the SEC. He succeeds Mark Uyeda, who had been serving as acting chairman since Gary Gensler stepped down from the role earlier this year.
Atkins has a lot of experience with the SEC. He previously served as a commissioner from 2002 to 2008. Notably, Commissioners Hester Peirce and Uyeda both previously served as counsel to Atkins during his original term as a commissioner. Since being named chairman, he’s emphasized that the SEC will prioritize innovation and capital formation moving forward, returning to the SEC’s core principles, and moving away from a perceived approach of regulation through enforcement.
The SEC also named Kurt Hohl as its chief accountant effective July 7, 2025. Like Atkins, Hohl is an SEC veteran, having served in the Division of Corporation Finance (Corp Fin) from 1989 to 1997.
In the midst of these changes, the SEC took a number of actions over the past few months, consistent with Chairman Atkins’ priorities:
- Crypto. Corp Fin issued a statement on April 4 clarifying the staff’s view that certain covered stablecoins are not securities under federal securities law, followed by a statement on May 9 clarifying the staff’s view that certain protocol staking activities don’t involve the offer or sale of securities. Corp Fin issued another statement on July 1 describing the staff’s views on disclosures made by issuers of crypto asset exchange-traded products (ETPs).
- Executive compensation. The SEC hosted a roundtable on June 26 to review the effectiveness of executive compensation disclosures. In public statements, Chairman Atkins and certain other commissioners signaled their views that the cost of the current requirements may not be justified.
- Regulation A. The Division of Economic Risk and Analysis published a report on the use of Regulation A by companies and the SEC Small Business Advisory Committee discussed potential improvements to Regulation A that could broaden its use.
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