ASA Applauds House FSGG Letter on CAT Delay

FSGG Subcommittee Members and Ranking Member Womack demand SEC block sensitive data from the consolidated audit trail.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, the American Securities Association (ASA) applauded members of the U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government (FSGG), including Ranking Member Steve Womack (R-AR) and Representatives David Joyce (R-OH), Chris Stewart (R-UT) and Mark Amodei (R-NV), for sending a letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding the agency’s order to delay the collection of retail investor personal and financial information by the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) to July 2024.

In July, the SEC released an order granting temporary relief from certain requirements of the CAT shortly after Republican members of the Senate Appropriations FSGG Subcommittee, who has jurisdiction over the SEC, sent a letter raising concerns about the privacy and national security threats CAT presents.

Protecting the personal and financial information of every American investor from hackers and cyber criminals from Russia and China is of the utmost importance,” ASA CEO Chris Iacovella said. “We thank Reps. Steve Womack, David Joyce, Chris Stewart and Mark Amodei for their leadership and sending a message to the SEC that it must not collect any of this information.”

Since the SEC introduced its intentions, ASA has been at the forefront of advocacy to remove retail investor PII from the CAT and filed a legal challenge against the agency to protect America’s retail investors from identity theft and safeguard their right to privacy. ASA has written several letters to the SEC and Congress on the issue and ASA CEO Iacovella penned an op-ed in The Hill titled “The National Security Risk No One Is Talking About.”

###