EXEMPTION FOR NONACCELERATED FILERS.

SEC. 989G. EXEMPTION FOR NONACCELERATED FILERS.(a) Exemption.—Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 is amended by adding at the end the following:“(c) Exemption for Smaller Issuers.—Subsection (b) shall not apply with respect to any audit report prepared for an issuer that is neither a ‘large accelerated filer’ nor an ‘accelerated filer’ as those terms are defined in Rule 12b–2 of the Commission (17 C.F.R. 240.12b–2).”.(b) Study.—The Securities and Exchange Commission shall conduct a study to determine how the Commission could reduce the burden of complying with section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 for companies whose market capitalization is between $75,000,000 and $250,000,000 for the relevant reporting period while maintaining investor protections for such companies. The study shall also consider whether any such methods of reducing the compliance burden or a complete exemption for such companies from compliance with such section would encourage companies to list on exchanges in the United States in their initial public offerings. Not later than 9 months after the date of the enactment of this subtitle, the Commission shall transmit a report of such study to Congress.