Washington, DC – CFA submitted a comment letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission urging the agency to call a halt to any further expansion of securities law exemptions until it studies the impact on investors and the public markets. The comments were filed in response to a Concept Release that, in the name of “harmonization” of exemptions, actually proposes to further expand the ability of companies to raise money in private markets that lack the transparency and accountability of public markets. Warning that four decades of deregulatory policies by Congress and the SEC have put investors at risk and undermined the health of the public markets on which the nation’s economy depends, CFA argued that the agency cannot reasonably move forward with plans to further expand private markets and retail investors’ exposure to those markets without first gathering and analyzing the data necessary to understand the impact on investor protection and public markets.