Hedge funds and other private issuers will be able to advertise and widely solicit for investors, under rules issued today by U.S. securities regulators. The rules were mandated by the 2012 JOBS Act, but proved contentious due to disagreement on what additional investor protections need to accompany them to reduce risks of fraud. The Securities and Exchange Commission also adopted a "bad actor" rule to ban felons from pitching private placements, but it deferred a final decision on the additional protections measure by issuing the safeguards in the form of proposed rules for comment, rather than a final rule. Investor-protection advocates criticized the lifting of the so-called "general solicitation" ban that dates back to Depression era financial reforms of the 1930s. The new rules require issuers to verify that all purchasers of securities meet certain criteria, such as being "accredited investors". A list of methods that firms can use to verify the status is included. They
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