Series 79: Exemption From State Registration Requirements

Exemption from State Registration Requirements

For more than 60 years, Congress was careful not to preempt state “blue sky” laws, which imposed state-level regulatory requirements on securities offerings, including in many cases registration, qualification, and filing requirements. Because these requirements varied from state to state, public offerings had to comply with a crazy-quilt of sometimes inconsistent state regulations in addition to federal requirements.

The National Securities Markets Improvement Act of 1996 (NSMIA), which was incorporated into the Securities Act as Section 18, ended the long tradition of deference to state regulation. NSMIA exempt