This morning, Mary Jo White (Chair of the SEC) addressed a meeting of the SEC Advisory Committee on Small and Emerging Companies and checklisted certain areas of SEC activity.  In reference to the issue of whether “finders and other intermediaries” in small business capital raises should be regulated, which the Staff “continues to review,”  there was NO mention of the deregulation of finders and intermediaries in the M&A area.

This notwithstanding over a decade of heated debate, proposed legislation, and Bar Association recommendations to deregulate M&A finders and brokers, or subject them to a so-called “Broker Dealer Lite” regimen.

Maybe White assumed the M&A issue was subsumed in her list.  Maybe she did not think the M&A issue is particular to small and emerging companies (which btw is incorrect).  Maybe….

In the immortal words of somebody: “go figure.”