[ by Howard Haykin ]

Changes support filings under the JOBS Act or CorpFin Division's Foreign Private Issuer policy.

The SEC has updated the Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval System (EDGAR) System to Release 12.2 on 10/1/12.  Changes were made to the Filer Manual and related rules, which are effective immediate - in that they they were scheduled to be upgraded on 10/1/12.  The revisions are being made primarily to support public dissemination of previously submitted draft registration statements either under the JOBS Act or the Division of Corporation Finance’s foreign private issuer policy. 

The changes also serve the following purposes: 

• to support PDF as an official filing format for submission type 40-33 and 40-33/A;
• to support changes in the beneficiary account and receiver American Bank Association number and name for fee payments made for filings
• to allow a future period date up to the next business date for Form 8-K
• to introduce a new correspondence type - DRSLTR - for submitting any correspondences related to draft registration statements
• to allow applicants to indicate that they are submitting an application for EDGAR access to file draft registration statements by updating Form ID application with “JOBS Act §106” or “Foreign Private Issuer Policy” options - this replaces the “Access codes will be used to submit draft registration statement” check box.
• to file submissions with a future period date up to the next business date from the date of submission as it pertains to submission form types 8-K, 8-K/A, 8-K12B, 8-K12B/A, 8-K12G3, 8-K12G3/A, 8-K15D5, and 8-K15D5/A, so long as submission is between 05:31 pm ET and 10:00 pm ET.
• to allow EDGAR filers to submit, on a voluntary basis, copies of litigation documents pursuant to Section 33 of the Investment Company Act of 1940 (submission types 40-33 and 40-33/A) in Portable Document Format (PDF) as an official filing format. EDGAR will continue to allow ASCII and HTML as official filing formats for submission types 40-33 and 40-33/A

How Changes Will Appear in Manual. The revisions appear in the EDGAR Filer Manual Volume I as: "EDGAR Filer Manual, “General Information,” Version 14 (October 2012).  Revisions appear in Volume II as:  “EDGAR Filing,” Version 21 (October 2012).    Supplementary information also appears in Volumes I and II of the EDGAR Filer Manual describing technical formatting requirements for the preparation and submission of electronic filings through the EDGAR system.  Revisions also describe the requirements for filing using EDGARLink Online and the Online Forms/XML website.

SEC Staff Contacts. For further info contact:

• CorpFin's Jeffrey Thomas - (202) 551-3600 - re: draft registration statements, Form 8-K.
• Invest. Mgmt's Barry Miller - (202) 551-6796 - re: submission types 40-33, 40-33/A.
• IT Office's Rick Heroux -  (202) 551-8800.

For further details, go to:  [SEC Final Rule Release #33-9364, 10/4/12].