Fair Investment Opportunities for Professional Experts Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, let me first thank the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Schweikert) and the gentlewoman from Arizona (Ms. Sinema) for their hard work on this bill. As was pointed out by Chairman Garrett, all the votes in the committee were in support of the bill, except for two.

This legislation expands the definition of a ``accredited investor,'' a status reserved for investors who possess the sophistication and financial means necessary to invest in private, unregistered securities offerings.

Many of these thresholds have not been updated, Mr. Speaker, since 1982, and the committee determined it was past time to do so.

It is important to note that the SEC Investor Advisory Committee as well issued bipartisan recommendations, which acknowledge that the current income and net worth tests ``don't begin to measure the type or level of financial sophistication needed to evaluate the potential risks and benefits of private offerings.''

We can all agree, and a vast majority of the members of the Financial Services Committee did agree, that an updated definition is long overdue. The authors of this legislation and the sponsors, Mr. Schweikert and Ms. Sinema, have worked to consider the risks of private offerings to ensure that investors in those offerings can understand and bear those risks.

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