Crowdfinancing

In 2009 Douglas Slain launched a monthly law reporting service, Securities Enforcement Reporter, and a quarterly, Blue Sky Chronicle, both titles focusing on state hearings of private placements gone astray. These publications’ print versions are no longer extant but their mission and community of interest live on through a growing 1400-member LinkedIn discussion group, State Securities Regulation Discussion Group.

Slain has been asked to serve as an expert witness in litigation that turned, in part, on compliance with SEC Regulation D. Slain recently taught an online course on “equity crowdfunding”—otherwise known as equity crowd financing, as mandated by the 2012 JOBS Act. This new asset class (already followed on MarketWatch.com) is being called Private Issuers Publicly Raising (PIPR).

Since early 2014 Slain has been serving on the Investor’s Committee of CrowdFund Intermediary Regulatory Advocates (CFIRA), a group of professionals working as a group with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to set standards and establish best practices.