25 States Now Recognize OTCQX for “Blue Sky Manual Exemption”
Last week, OTC Markets announced that 25 states now recognize the OTCQX market for the purposes of their “Blue Sky Manual Exemption” for secondary trading.
Since the recognition by the SEC that OTCQX and OTCQB are established public markets, OTC Markets Group has fostered an ongoing dialogue with state regulators to apprise them of the easily accessible, free, public online disclosure of current information offered by companies traded on the OTCQX and OTCQB markets. Effective July 1, 2016, Vermont became the first state to recognize the OTCQX market. One year later, the results have been overwhelmingly positive with half of the 50 states now acknowledging the OTCQX Market for the purposes of Blue Sky Manual exemption.
The breakdown of the list of 25 states that recognize our premium markets for the purposes of the Blue Sky Manual Exemption is as follows:
22 states recognize both the OTCQX and OTCQB markets: Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
3 states solely recognize the OTCQX Market: Idaho, Kansas, and Vermont.
State Blue Sky laws generally help investors make informed decisions by mandating that companies disclose accurate and current information when offering or marketing securities. Regulators and brokers across the country rely on disclosure-based manual exemptions from individual state Blue Sky laws. Forty-four U.S. states and jurisdictions maintain manual exemptions, which generally allow for secondary trading of qualifying companies as long as certain key information about the company is published in a nationally recognized securities manual or its electronic equivalent. Each state determines which manuals qualify under its rules.
Learn more HERE.