§ 240.15g-4 - Disclosure of compensation to brokers or dealers.

§ 240.15g-4 Disclosure of compensation to brokers or dealers.

Preliminary Note:

Brokers and dealers may wish to refer to Securities Exchange Act Release No. 30608 (April 20, 1992) for a discussion of the procedures for computing compensation in active and competitive markets, inactive and competitive markets, and dominated and controlled markets.

(a) Disclosure requirement. It shall be unlawful for any broker or dealer to effect a transaction in any penny stock for or with the account of a customer unless such broker or dealer discloses to such customer, within the time periods and in the manner required by paragraph (b) of this section, the aggregate amount of any compensation received by such broker or dealer in connection with such transaction.

(b) Timing.

(1) The information described in paragraph (a) of this section:

(i) Shall be provided to the customer orally or in writing prior to effecting any transaction with or for the customer for the purchase or sale of such penny stock; and

(ii) Shall be given or sent to the customer in writing, at or prior to the time that any written confirmation of the transaction is given or sent to the customer pursuant to 17 CFR 240.10b-10.

(2) A broker or dealer, at the time of making the disclosure pursuant to paragraph (b)(1)(i) of this section, shall make and preserve as part of its records, a record of such disclosure for the period specified in 17 CFR 240.17a-4(b).

(c) Definition of compensation. For purposes of this section, compensation means, with respect to a transaction in a penny stock:

(1) If a broker is acting as agent for a customer, the amount of any remuneration received or to be received by it from such customer in connection with such transaction;

(2) If, after having received a buy order from a customer, a dealer other than a market maker purchased the penny stock as principal from another person to offset a contemporaneous sale to such customer or, after having received a sell order from a customer, sold the penny stock as principal to another person to offset a contemporaneous purchase from such customer, the difference between the price to the customer and such contemporaneous purchase or sale price; or

(3) If the dealer otherwise is acting as principal for its own account, the difference between the price to the customer and the prevailing market price.

(d) Active and competitive market. For purposes of this section only, a market may be deemed to be “active and competitive” in determining the prevailing market price with respect to a transaction by a market maker in a penny stock if the aggregate number of transactions effected by such market maker in the penny stock in the five business days preceding such transaction is less than twenty percent of the aggregate number of all transactions in the penny stock reported on a Qualifying Electronic Quotation System (as defined in 17 CFR 240.15g-3(c)(5)) during such five-day period. No presumption shall arise that a market is not “active and competitive” solely by reason of a market maker not meeting the conditions specified in this paragraph.

[57 FR 18034, Apr. 28, 1992]