Regulation Crowdfunding Investment Limit

The SEC's Regulation Crowdfunding sets forth the rules pursuant to which companies may raise capital through the SEC's equity crowdfunding exemption.  One of those rules sets limits on the amount of crowdfunding investments by any one investor in crowdfunding offerings (by all companies conducting crowdfunding offerings) in any 12-month period.

Specifically,  Rule 100(a)(2) of Regulation Crowdfunding provides:

"The aggregate amount of securities sold to any investor across all issuers in reliance on [the equity crowdfunding exemption] during the 12-month period preceding the date of such transaction, including the securities sold to such investor in such transaction, shall not exceed: 

(i) The greater of $2,000 or 5 percent of the lesser of the investor’s annual income or net
worth if either the investor’s annual income or net worth is less than $100,000; or

(ii) 10 percent of the lesser of the investor’s annual income or net worth, not to exceed an
amount sold of $100,000, if both the investor’s annual income and net worth are equal to or more
than $100,000."

The investment limit (for all crowdfunding investments) for a crowdfunding investor always results in a number:

• between $2,000 and $5,000; or 
• between $10,000 and $100,000. 

Put another way, the investment limit for a crowdfunding investor can never be:

• less than $2,000;
• more than $5,000 but less than $10,000; or 
• more than $100,00.

I have developed a handy calculator for determining the investment amount limit for a particular equity crowdfunding investor based upon their income, net worth, and prior crowdfunding investments in the past 12-months. Feel free to contact me if you'd like a copy of the investment limit calculator.

Equity Crowdfunding under Federal Law has Arrived!

It's finally here.  Four years after the JOBS Act of 2012 was signed into law which required the SEC to adopt rules permitting equity crowdfunding, the SEC's final rules titled "Regulation Crowdfunding" have gone effective.

Effective May 16, 2016, U.S. companies may now offer and sell shares of stock and other securities via crowdfunding and qualify for an exemption from securities registration requirements under Section 4(a)(6) of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended.

I'm still wading through the SEC's 685-page final rule release adopting Regulation Crowdfunding, which is available here.  I plan to blog about this matter further in the coming days, but in the meantime, you can read "Regulation Crowdfunding: A Small Entity Compliance Guide for Issuers" written by the SEC, which is available here.

Little Known Facts: LLCs and Statutory Attorney's Fees in Texas

Here's a Little Known Fact about an advantage of operating as a limited liability company (LLC) in Texas.

LLC's are not subject to Section 38.001 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, which permits statutory recovery of reasonable attorney's fees from individuals and corporations for certain claims, including claims for an oral or written contract.

Section 38.001 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code provides as follows:

"A person may recover reasonable attorney's fees from an individual or corporation, in addition to the amount of a valid claim and costs, if the claim is for:
(1) rendered services;
(2) performed labor;
(3) furnished material;
(4) freight or express overcharges;
(5) lost or damaged freight or express;
(6) killed or injured stock;
(7) a sworn account;  or
(8) an oral or written contract."

A 2014 case decided by the Houston Court of Appeals (Fleming v. Barton) has confirmed that the statute means what it says - that only individuals and corporations (not LLCs, limited partnerships (LPs), limited liability partnerships (LLPs) and other entities) may be liable under Section 38.001. Relying upon the plain language of the statute, that court denied a claim for legal fees under Section 38.001 against Fleming & Associates, L.L.P. because it was a limited liability partnership.

But wait a second, why wouldn't a limited liability company, limited liability partnership, or limited partnership who lost a breach of contract lawsuit face the same liability as a natural person or a corporation that was guilty of the exact same breach?

It arises as a quirk of Texas's statutory codification process.  When the Civil Practice and Remedies Code was adopted in 1986, it replaced the existing Article 2226 of the Texas Revised Civil Statutes, which permitted recovery of legal fees against “a person or corporation.”  The then-recently adopted Texas Code Construction Act had defined "person" broadly to include any legal entity, including governmental entities.  So in seeking to avoid substantive changes to Article 2226, the drafters chose the word "individual" instead of "person" to clarify that governmental entities could not be subject to liability under Section 38.001.

This strikes me as a great area of the law for the Texas legislature to step in and clarify that LLCs, LPs, LLPs, and other business entities (perhaps excluding governmental entities) should face the same liability under Section 38.001 as individuals and corporations.

Note that the issue discussed above relates only to statutory attorney's fees provided for by Section 38.001 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code.  Nothing in that section prevents an LLC or other entity to agreeing to cover another party's attorney's fees pursuant to a contract.