[Federal Register Volume 70, Number 70 (Wednesday, April 13, 2005)]
[Notices]
[Pages 19509-19510]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E5-1736]


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SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION


Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request

Upon Written Request, Copies Available From: Securities and Exchange 
Commission, Office of Filings and Information Services, Washington, DC 
20549.

    Extension: Complaint & Question Forms; SEC File No. 270-485; OMB 
Control No. 3235-0547.

    Notice is hereby given that pursuant to the Paperwork Reduction Act 
of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.) the Securities and Exchange Commission 
(``Commission'') has submitted to the Office of Management and Budget a 
request for extension of the previously approved collection of 
information discussed below. The titles of the forms are: Enforcement 
Complaint Form; Investor Complaint Form; Financial Privacy Notice 
Complaint Form; and Questions and Feedback Form.
    Each year, the SEC receives more than 250,000 contacts from 
investors who have complaints or questions on a wide range of 
investment-related issues. These contacts generally fall into the 
following three categories:
    (a) Complaints against SEC-regulated individuals or entities;
    (b) Questions concerning the federal securities laws, companies or 
firms that the SEC regulates, or other investment-related questions; 
and
    (c) Tips concerning potential violations of the federal securities 
laws.
    Investors who submit complaints, ask questions, or provide tips do 
so voluntarily. To make it easier for investors to contact the agency 
electronically, the SEC created a series of investor complaint and 
question Web forms. Investors can access these forms through the SEC 
Center for Complaints and Enforcement Tips at http://www.sec.gov/complaint.shtml.
    Although the SEC's complaint and question forms provide a 
structured format for incoming investor correspondence, the SEC does 
not require that investors use any particular form or format when 
contacting the agency. To the contrary, investors may submit 
complaints, questions, and tips through a variety of other means, 
including telephone, letter, facsimile, or e-mail. Approximately 20,000 
investors each year voluntarily choose to use the complaint and 
question forms, and approximately 98 percent of those investors submit 
the forms electronically through the Internet (as opposed to printing 
and mailing or faxing the forms).
    Investors who choose not to use the complaint and question forms 
receive the same level of service as those who do. The dual purpose of 
the forms is to make it easier for the public to contact the agency 
with complaints, questions, tips, or other feedback and to streamline 
the workflow of the SEC staff who handle those contacts.
    The SEC has used--and will continue to use--the information that 
investors supply on the complaint and question forms to review and 
process the contact (which may, in turn, involve responding to 
questions, processing complaints, or, as appropriate, initiating 
enforcement investigations), to maintain a record of contacts, to track 
the volume of investor complaints, and to analyze trends.
    The complaint forms ask investors to provide information 
concerning, among other things, their names, how they can be reached, 
the names of the individuals or entities involved, the nature of their 
complaint or tip, what documents they can provide, and what, if any, 
legal actions they have taken. The question form asks investors to 
provide their names, e-mail addresses, and questions.
    The SEC's online complaint and question forms automatically route 
the investor's complaint, question, or tip to the appropriate division 
or office--specifically, to either the Division of Enforcement or the 
Office of Investor Education and Assistance. Many questions on the 
online complaint and questions forms appear in multiple-choice format 
or employ drop-down boxes so that the investor can provide information 
by simply checking a box or selecting a pre-loaded option. Moreover, 
three of the four forms--specially the Investor Complaint Form, the 
Financial Privacy Notice Complaint Form, and the Questions and Feedback 
Form--map directly to the correspondence management system that the 
Office of Investor Education and Assistance uses, thus significantly 
reducing the need for SEC staff to enter manually the data that the 
investor already provided. Investors who use the Enforcement Complaint 
Form receive an automatic response from the Division of Enforcement. In 
addition, investors who use the Investor Complaint Form, the Financial 
Privacy Notice Complaint Form, and the Questions and Feedback Form not 
only receive an immediate, online

[[Page 19510]]

confirmation of their submissions, but they also receive custom 
responses via e-mail from the Office of Investor Education and 
Assistance which include an automatically generated file number.
    Investor use of the SEC's complaint and question forms is strictly 
voluntary. Moreover, the SEC does not require investors to submit 
complaints, questions, tips, or other feedback. Absent the forms, 
investors would still have several ways to contact the agency, 
including telephone, facsimile, letters, and e-mail. Nevertheless, the 
SEC created its complaint and question forms to make it easier for 
investors to contact the agency with complaints, questions, or tips. 
The forms further streamline the workflow of SEC staff who record, 
process, and respond to investor contacts.
    The staff of the SEC estimates that the total reporting burden for 
using the complaint and question forms is 5,000 hours. The calculation 
of this estimate depends on the number of investors who use the forms 
each year and the estimated time it takes to complete the forms: 20,000 
respondents x 15 minutes = 5,000 burden hours.
    Responses to the complaint and question forms are subject to the 
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which generally allows the SEC to 
make information available to the public upon request. An investor who 
submits a complaint or question form may request that his or her 
information not be released to the public by writing a letter asking 
that the information remain confidential under one of the exemptions 
described in FOIA (see 5 U.S.C. 552). The SEC determines whether the 
investor's claim of an exemption is valid when someone requests the 
investor's information under FOIA. The SEC often makes its files 
available to other governmental agencies, particularly United States 
Attorneys, state securities regulators, and state prosecutors. There is 
a likelihood that information supplied by investors will be made 
available to such agencies where appropriate. Whether or not the SEC 
makes its files available to other governmental agencies is, in 
general, a confidential matter between the SEC and such other 
governmental agencies.
    The document retention period for the correspondence management 
system used by the Office of Investor Education and Assistance is four 
years.
    An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required 
to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a 
currently valid control number.
    Written comments regarding the above information should be directed 
to the following persons: (i) Desk Officer for the Securities and 
Exchange Commission, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, 
Office of Management and Budget, Room 10102, New Executive Office 
Building, Washington, DC 20503, or send an e-mail to: [email protected]; and (ii) R. Corey Booth, Director/Chief 
Information Officer, Office of Information Technology, Securities and 
Exchange Commission, 450 Fifth Street, NW., Washington, DC 20549. 
Comments must be submitted to OMB within 30 days of this notice.

    Dated: April 4, 2005.
Margaret H. McFarland,
Deputy Secretary.
[FR Doc. E5-1736 Filed 4-12-05; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 8010-01-P