U.S. Chamber Backs SEC Plan to Make E-Delivery Default

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has endorsed the Securities and Exchange Commission's Regulation E-Delivery proposal, calling it a commonsense reform that would make electronic delivery the default channel for investor disclosures in U.S. capital markets.

Mike Flood, senior vice president of the Chamber's Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness, issued the statement from Washington, D.C., shortly after the SEC put the proposal forward. The Chamber's backing gives the SEC's plan early support from the country's largest business lobbying organization at the start of what will be a formal comment and review process.

"The U.S. Chamber commends the SEC for proposing Regulation E-Delivery, a commonsense reform that will modernize investor disclosures and improve how critical information is delivered," Flood said in the statement.

The core of the proposal, as the Chamber describes it, is a shift in the default mechanism for sending disclosure documents to investors. Today's default would give way to electronic delivery as the standard channel. Flood argued the change would produce tangible benefits for the people who actually receive those documents: shareholders and other investors.

"Making e-delivery the default will give investors more timely, secure, accessible, and cost-effective communications," Flood said.

Each of those four claims carries weight for corporate issuers and investors alike. Timeliness matters because paper-based delivery adds lag between a filing and its arrival in an investor's hands. Security and accessibility speak to the format of the documents themselves. Cost-effectiveness speaks to the expense that printing and postal distribution impose on the companies that must send disclosures — an expense the Chamber has long viewed as a candidate for reduction.

The statement was not an unqualified endorsement of every detail. Flood signaled that the Chamber intends to work through the full text before settling on its formal position.

"While we look forward to reviewing the proposal in its entirety, the Chamber has long encouraged the SEC to prioritize this important policy improvement and for Congress to advance legislation to provide durable certainty," Flood said.

That closing line does two things. It positions the Chamber as a long-standing advocate of e-delivery rather than a recent convert, and it raises the prospect of congressional action to lock the policy in beyond the SEC's own rulemaking authority. The phrase "durable certainty" points to the lobbying group's concern that a rule adopted by one commission can be revisited or unwound by a future one. Legislation, in the Chamber's framing, would remove that risk.

The dual-track ask — SEC rulemaking now, congressional legislation as a backstop — reflects how the Chamber typically pursues financial regulatory policy: use the expert agency where it is already moving, and press lawmakers to codify the result so it survives changes in administration.

The statement came from the Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness, the Chamber's in-house unit focused on capital markets policy. Flood leads that center as senior vice president.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce describes itself as the world's largest business organization, representing companies of all sizes across every sector of the economy. Its membership ranges from small businesses and local chambers of commerce to the largest corporations in the country, which gives its early endorsement of Regulation E-Delivery a broad base of corporate weight behind it.

For the SEC, the Chamber's welcome sets a constructive tone for the comment period. For issuers, the prospect of an e-delivery default points to lower distribution costs for routine investor communications. For investors, it promises faster access to the documents that carry proxy votes, fund updates and other time-sensitive material. The next step is the Chamber's own: a full review of the proposal's text, followed by formal comments and continued pressure on Congress to make the reform permanent.