Regulators said on Tuesday that companies can use Twitter, Facebook and other social media to make key announcements as long as they tell investors which sites they will use.

The SEC fined VC Matt Crisp $50,000 and banned him from investing for one year in a settlement over his failure to disclose to Adams Street his involvement in AV Partners.

SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro recently told Congress it was “not feasible” to meet the JOBS Act’s 90-day deadline for the implementation of changes to Securities Act Rule 506 to permit general solicitation in private placements to accredited investors.

Since the beginning of May, at least two new investment-oriented crowdfunding initiatives have been announced — a partnership between EarlyShares.com and Navocate, and one by the U.S. Crowdfunding Exchange LLC, Reuters reports.

Deal lawyer Chris Manderson offers some important tips PE firms should follow to avoid ending up in a situation like the one EIG Global Energy is dealing with at Chesapeake Energy Corp.

Until SEC rule-making is complete the crowdfunding exemption under Section 4(6) is not available for offers and sales of securities. Nonetheless, equity crowdfunding offers are already easy to find on Twitter.

(Reuters) – The top U.S. securities regulator has formed an advisory panel of fast-growing companies and venture capital funds as it reviews whether it needs to update rules on how private companies can access public investors.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has said it is examining its share issuance rules for private companies to see if they are still relevant in light of market developments.

The issue jumped into the spotlight recently as Wall Street banks and electronic markets offer investors a chance to buy and actively trade stakes in hot Internet companies such as Facebook and Twitter before they go public.

Lawmakers have also raised concerns about whether the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s restrictions on capital raising by private companies hurt innovation and …

Former Securities & Exchange Commission senior trial counsel Mark Fickes has joined the law firm BraunHagey in San Francisco. FIckes joins directly from the SEC, where he has spent the last seven years. Prior to the SEC, Fickes worked in private practice at Glynn & Finley and at Wilson Sonsini. Fickes is the fifth attorney to join [...]

There wasn’t much angst about the new definition of venture capital firms.

Yesterday, we asked you if the SEC got it right with its interpretation of VC firms. With the definition, the regulator is allowing VCs to operate pretty much as they are already. VCs can invest up to 20% of a fund in so-called non-conforming investments without triggering registration demands, peHUB reported.

Yesterday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission made public its definition of venture capital firms for the purposes of exemption from SEC registration requirements.

VCs and the NVCA hoped, with bated breath, that few if any VC firms would get sucked into the same category as private equity and hedge funds. But even exempt firms face some filing requirements and could be subject to SEC examinations under a separate SEC rulemaking. (Austin Ventures recently hired a combination compliance officer and general counsel, raising questions about the extent of such requirements. In addition…