SEC Rule Withdrawals: Strategic Reset and How Smarsh Helps
Contributing Authors: Robert Cruz and Tiffany Magri
On June 12, 2025, the SEC officially withdrew 14 proposed rules originally introduced under previous SEC Chair, Gary Gensler. Current SEC Chair Paul Atkins has repeatedly stated a goal to “return to normal” days of enforcement, along with his commitment to reduce what he sees as undue regulatory burdens.
These withdrawals covered areas such as cybersecurity risk management, predictive analytics, ESG disclosures, custody standards, outsourcing, and more.
Why it matters
With the SEC withdrawing rule proposals, firms now have an opportunity for a “strategic reset,” allowing them to focus on existing compliance programs rather than preparing for potentially burdensome new mandates.
Implications for small/mid-size firms
The results of such drastic change have yet to play out, both in enforcement statistics as well as in the performance of the industry. However, early results point to several short- and longer-term implications:
- Temporary relief: Firms don’t have to scramble to prepare for the proposed compliance mandates
- Focus on bolstering existing frameworks: Many firms have learned the painful lesson that investigations often look back at several years’ worth of data — having your house in order now can reduce the pain of responding to issues later
Smarsh continues to support compliance teams through SEC proposal withdrawals
While these proposals are off the table for now, regulators continue to expect rigorous cybersecurity, recordkeeping, and oversight practices.
For small and mid-sized RIAs, broker‑dealers, and advisory firms, the regulatory reprioritization is a strategic opportunity to implement or enhance foundational compliance infrastructure. Smarsh is ideally suited to help firms capitalize on this reset with our Cyber Compliance, Professional Archive, and Web Archive products.
Cyber Compliance
While no longer an expected mandate, the SEC’s withdrawn Cybersecurity Risk Management Rules did raise awareness around managing cyber threats. Smarsh’s integrated cybersecurity tools help firms build:
- Risk assessments
- Real-time monitoring
- Incident response planning
- Third-party vendor oversight
Professional Archive
Despite the cyber rule rollback, comprehensive archiving is non-negotiable. Smarsh Professional Archive offers:
- Capture of 100+ channels (email, IM, chat, voice, social, and more) with full context
- Supervision engine featuring policy templates, alerting, and customizable workflows
- E‑discovery support, audit trails, and WORM-compliant storage under SEC Rule 17a-4
- AI Assistant that speeds up reviews, flags nuanced risks, summarizes communications, and translates global content
Web Archive
Web compliance remains essential. Smarsh Web Archive:
- Automatically captures website changes and embeds in WARC format
- Offers searchable records, workflow flags, and audit logs
- Ensures firms can quickly produce evidence during e‑discovery or regulatory reviews
Your post-withdrawal playbook
| Action | How Smarsh helps | Benefit |
|---|---|---|
|
Bolster compliance stack |
Web Archive and Cyber Compliance |
Identify gaps, streamline controls |
|
Centralize supervision and archives |
Professional Archive |
Spot hidden risks across channels |
|
Automate reviews and reduce manual load |
AI Assistant |
Improve efficiency and focus on key issues |
|
Prepare for what’s next |
Fully standardized and documented platform |
Ready for any new SEC proposal |
Fast forward your compliance during the SEC pause
The SEC’s rule withdrawals grant a strategic pause. Now is the ideal time for small and mid-sized finance firms to transition from reactive to proactive compliance. Smarsh offers a powerful, integrated platform to:
- Reinforce core policies
- Centralize archiving and supervision
- Automate workflows and risk detection
- Prepare for future regulatory shifts
Smarsh delivers more than compliance — we deliver a competitive advantage.
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Scalable for organizations of all sizes, the Smarsh platform provides customers with compliance built on confidence. It enables them to strategically future-proof as new communication channels are adopted, and to realize more insight and value from the data in their archive. Customers strengthen their compliance and e-discovery initiatives and benefit from the productive use of email, social media, mobile/text messaging, instant messaging and collaboration, web, and voice channels.
Smarsh serves a global client base that spans the top banks in North America and Europe, along with leading brokerage firms, insurers, and registered investment advisors. Smarsh also enables state and local government agencies to meet their public records and e-discovery requirements. For more information, visit www.smarsh.com.
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