By Katanga Johnson

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will on Wednesday propose tightening a safe-harbor for corporate insiders trading in company shares. Also, other rules are proposed to increase the resilience of money markets funds.

It will also offer rules for fixing problems that were highlighted earlier in the year by the collapse of New York’s family office Archegos.

Gary Gensler, the chairman of SEC, will be celebrating a major milestone in his tenure as Wall Street watchdog.

Proposed tightening on “10b5-1”, corporate trading plans, will be cheered especially by progressives. These people have long complained that the existing rules are too loose and allow insiders access to the system to gain financial gains at the expense for ordinary investors.

The current plans permit insiders trade in company stock on a set future date. It provides legal protection against possible allegations of insider trading based on non-public material.

Critics argue that it’s too simple to cancel, modify, or adopt trades without much scrutiny.

The Wednesday proposal would require that executives report those plans and any modifications. This is contrary to the views of academics and advocates who advocated for these changes.

Caroline Crenshaw, a Democratic-appointed Commissioner has stated that she also supports a “cooling off period” of at most four to six months between adoption of Rule 10b5-1 plans and trades under them.

The Wednesday meeting will address systemic risk in U.S. money markets funds worth multi-trillion dollars. Investors fled these funds during the 2020 pandemic.

Progressive groups have called on the SEC for market resilience. This includes adjusting the value of the fund in accordance with trading activity, transfer costs, and redeeming investor costs, also known as “swing pricing”.