JOBS Act: Things to look forward to (and to dread)

news.cnet.com

23 points·mkramer05··4 comments

"Startup CEOs could lose everything. Speaking of lawyers, companies that take crowdfunding expose their officers to personal liabiilty; they can be sued for their personal assets. For this reason, many businesses won't open up crowdfunding rounds unless they absolutely have to. The overall quality of crowdfunding investments will be lower than it would have been otherwise."

This seems like a deal breaker to me. Does anyone have any specific insight to the details of this aspect?

That scared me at first too so I did some research. The CNet article is wrong. It seems that the personal liability only applies to "material misrepresentations and omissions made to investors in connection with a crowdfunding offering".

See http://financialservices.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?... (see General Anti-Fraud Provisions section) and http://www.dandodiary.com/2012/04/articles/regulatory-reform... (search for above quote).

"Crappy IPOs" is the top point for me. This Act only further encourages unprofitable companies with no real plan-to-profitablity to dress up and hit the public with over-hyped IPO roadshows. It all becomes about hype vs. substance. We've seen it all before and it's rediculous that such activity has now been codified.

Are there any companies which are providing expertise in using the JOBS Act to help startups?

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