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Washington, D.C. —  U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) released a statement after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler announced additional scrutiny before allowing China-based companies to list on U.S. stock exchanges.

“The SEC’s announcement to increase transparency and disclosure for Chinese companies is long overdue,” Rubio said. “While this is a good first step, we need to do much more to protect American retirees and pensioners from unaccountable Chinese companies. If the Biden Administration is serious about prioritizing American workers and mom-and-pop investors above Beijing and Wall Street, there is much more it can do. It should start with supporting my bipartisan No IPOs for Unaccountable Actors Act. No American’s savings should be used to fund communist China’s rise, and this is the only way we can actually protect Americans and cut off Beijing’s exploitation of our capital markets.”  

In May 2021, Rubio and Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) introduced the No IPOs for Unaccountable Actors Act to prohibit initial public offerings (IPOs) on U.S. exchanges for Chinese companies that are out of compliance with U.S. regulators. This legislation would direct the SEC to prohibit any company headquartered in a jurisdiction in which the PCAOB lacks standard auditing authority, or that retains an auditor PCAOB cannot inspect, from registering a security and making an IPO on a U.S. stock exchange. This would prevent Chinese companies from issuing IPOs or listing on American exchanges through SPACs.

In 2020, Rubio and Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) worked to pass the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act into law. The HFCAA subjects Chinese and other foreign companies listed on American exchanges, like Didi, to the same audit oversight standards as all other U.S. listed firms. The law requires that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) delist and ban over-the-counter trading for firms that are out of compliance with U.S. regulators for a period of three years. 

In other words, because the Chinese Communist Party prevents the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) from conducting an audit, Didi would be delisted from American exchanges in three years. Rubio also urged the Working Group on Financial Markets to close the “loophole” by which variable interest entities (VIEs) list on U.S. exchanges without compliance with U.S. law.

Related:

• June 2021: Rubio: SEC Should Block IPO of Chinese Ride-Hail Company DiDi

• June 2021: Rubio Statement on Biden’s China Blacklist

• May 2021: Rubio: Wall Street Must Stop Enabling Communist China (American Prospect)

• May 2021: Rubio, Casey Introduce Bill to Ban Chinese Firms That Ignore U.S. Laws From Listing on U.S. Exchanges

• May 2021: Rubio Leads Bipartisan, Bicameral Bill Banning TSP Board From Steering Federal Retirement Savings to China

• January 2021: Rubio Statement on NYSE, Delisting of Chinese Telecom Companies

• November 2020: Rubio Statement on SEC Proposed Plan to Ban Chinese Firms That Flout U.S. Laws From U.S. Exchanges 

• July 2020: Rubio Urges President’s Working Group on Financial Markets to Address China’s Exploitation of U.S. Financial System

• May 2020: Rubio, Shaheen Welcome Decision by TSP Board to Halt Transfer of Federal Retirement Savings to China  

• October 2019: Rubio, Shaheen Lead Bipartisan Group Urging TSP Board to Reverse Decision to Steer Federal Retirement Savings to China

• September 2019: ICYMI: Rubio & Shaheen: Federal Retirement Savings Should Not Fund China’s Communist Party

• August 2019: Rubio, Shaheen Urge TSP Board to Reverse Decision to Steer Federal Retirement Savings to China

• June 2019: Rubio, Colleagues Introduce Bipartisan, Bicameral Bill to Ban Chinese & Foreign Firms that Flout U.S. Laws from U.S. Exchanges