2022-19804. Proposed Collection; Comment Request; Extension: Rule 17a-6

Upon Written Request, Copies Available From: Securities and Exchange Commission, Office of FOIA Services, 100 F Street NE, Washington, DC 20549-2736

Notice is hereby given that, pursuant to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.), the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “Commission”) is soliciting comments on the collections of information summarized below. The Commission plans to submit these existing collections of information to the Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) for extension and approval.

Section 17(a) of the Investment Company Act of 1940 (the “Act”) generally prohibits affiliated persons of a registered investment company (“fund”) from borrowing money or other property from, or selling or buying securities or other property to or from, the fund or any company that the fund controls. Rule 17a-6 (17 CFR 270.17a-6) permits a fund, or a company controlled by the fund, and a “portfolio affiliate” of the fund (a company that is an affiliated person of the fund because the fund controls the company, or holds five percent or more of the company's outstanding voting securities) to engage in principal transactions that would otherwise be prohibited under section 17(a) of the Act under certain conditions. A fund may not rely on the exemption in the rule to enter into a principal transaction with a portfolio affiliate if certain prohibited participants ( e.g., directors, officers, employees, or investment advisers of the fund) have a financial interest in a party to the transaction. Rule 17a-6 specifies certain interests that are not “financial interests,” including any interest that the fund's board of directors (including a majority of the directors who are not interested persons of the fund) finds to be not material. A board making this finding is required to record the basis for the finding in its meeting minutes. This recordkeeping requirement is a collection of information under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (“PRA”).

The rule is designed to permit transactions between funds and their portfolio affiliates in circumstances in which it is unlikely that the affiliate would be in a position to take advantage of the fund. In determining whether a financial interest is “material,” the board of the fund should consider whether the nature and extent of the interest in the transaction is sufficiently small that a reasonable person would not believe that the interest affected the determination of whether to enter into the transaction or arrangement or the terms of the transaction or arrangement. The information collection requirements in rule 17a-6 are intended to ensure that Commission staff can review, in the course of its compliance and examination functions, the basis for a board of director's finding that the financial interest of an otherwise prohibited participant in a party to a transaction with a portfolio affiliate is not material.

Based on public filings made with the Commission, we estimate that annually 335 funds and their series (collectively, “funds”) may rely on rule 17a-6 to engage in otherwise prohibited transactions under section 17(a) of the 1940 Act. This estimate is based on publicly available Form N-CEN filings. Solely for the purposes of this PRA extension, we assume that each of these funds has engaged in one transaction per reporting period that resulted in a paperwork burden pursuant to rule 17a-6. We estimate that compliance with the recordkeeping requirement for rule 17a-6 will impose a burden of .2 hours (12 minutes) for each transaction for which there is a paperwork burden. Therefore, we estimate 67 burden hours to be associated with rule 17a-6 recordkeeping requirements annually, with an associated internal cost of $5,762.

The estimate of burden hours and burden costs is made solely for the purposes of the PRA. The estimate is not derived from a comprehensive or even a representative survey or study of the costs of Commission rules. Complying with this collection of information requirement is necessary to obtain the benefit of relying on rule 17a-6. An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid control number.

Written comments are invited on: (a) whether the proposed collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the Commission, including whether the information shall have practical utility; (b) the accuracy of the Commission's estimate of the burden of the collection of information; (c) ways to enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information collected; and (d) ways to minimize the burden of the collection of information on respondents, including through the use of automated collection techniques or other forms of information technology. Consideration will be given to comments and suggestions submitted by November 14, 2022.

An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information under the PRA unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number.

Please direct your written comments to: David Bottom, Acting Director/Chief Information Officer, Securities and Exchange Commission, c/o John Pezzullo, 100 F Street NE, Washington, DC 20549 or send an email to: [e-mail].

Dated: September 8, 2022.

J. Matthew DeLesDernier,

Deputy Secretary.