2023 Massachusetts General Laws › Part I - Administration of the Government › Title XV - Regulation of Trade › Chapter 110a - Uniform Securities Act › Section 402 - Exemptions

Section 402. (a) The following securities are exempted from sections 301, 306 and 403:
(1) any security, including a revenue obligation, issued or guaranteed by the United States, any state, including this commonwealth, any political subdivision of a state, or any agency or corporate or other instrumentality of 1 or more of the foregoing or any certificate of deposit for any of the foregoing.
(2) any security other than a revenue obligation issued or guaranteed by Canada, any Canadian province, any political subdivision of any such province, any agency or corporate or other instrumentality of one or more of the foregoing, or any other foreign government with which the United States currently maintains diplomatic relations if the security is recognized as a valid obligation by the issuer or guarantor;
(3) any security issued by and representing an interest in or a debt of, or guaranteed by, any bank organized under the laws of the United States, or any bank, savings institution, or trust company organized and supervised under the laws of any state;
(4) any security issued by and representing an interest in or a debt of, or guaranteed by, any federal savings and loan association, or any building and loan or similar association organized under the laws of any state and authorized to do business in this commonwealth, or any corporation licensed to make small loans and subject to regulation by the commissioner of banks under chapter one hundred and forty;
(5) any security issued by and representing an interest in or a debt of, or guaranteed by, any insurance company organized under the laws of any state and authorized to do business in this commonwealth;
(6) any security issued or guaranteed by any federal credit union or any credit union, industrial loan association, or similar association organized and supervised under the laws of this commonwealth;
(7) any security issued or guaranteed by any railroad, other common carrier, public utility, or holding company which is (A) subject to the jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission; (B) a registered holding company under the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 or a subsidiary of such a company within the meaning of that act; (C) regulated in respect of its rates and charges by a governmental authority of the United States or any state; or (D) regulated in respect of the issuance or guarantee of the security by a governmental authority of the United States, any state, Canada, or any Canadian province;
(8) any security that is listed or approved for listing upon notice of issuance on the American Stock Exchange, the Boston Stock Exchange, the Chicago Stock Exchange, the New York Stock Exchange, the Pacific Stock Exchange, or any other stock exchange specified by the secretary; any other security of the same issuer which is of senior or substantially equal rank; any security called for by subscription rights or warrants so listed or approved; or any warrant or right to purchase or subscribe to any of the foregoing;.
(9) any security issued by any person organized and operated not for private profit but exclusively for religious, educational, benevolent, charitable, fraternal, social, athletic, or reformatory purposes, or as a chamber of commerce or trade or professional association;
(10) any commercial paper which arises out of a current transaction or the proceeds of which have been or are to be used for current transactions, and which evidences an obligation to pay cash within nine months of the date of issuance, exclusive of days of grace, or any renewal of such paper which is likewise limited, or any guarantee of such paper or of any such renewal;
(11) any investment contract issued in connection with an employees' stock purchase, savings, pension, profit-sharing, or similar benefit plan if the secretary is notified in writing thirty days before the inception of the plan or, with respect to plans which are in effect on the effective date of this chapter, within sixty days thereafter, or within thirty days before they are reopened if they are closed on the effective date of this chapter;
(12) any security issued by a cooperative corporation organized under chapter one hundred and fifty-seven or organized under chapter one hundred and fifty-seven A if (A) its authorized capital stock does not exceed fifty thousand dollars and (B) no expenditure is made by or on its behalf in connection with the issuance or sale of its securities other than the actual expenses of organization, calling or holding meetings of incorporators or shareholders, printing, mailing, and taxes.
(b) The following transactions are exempted from sections 301, 306 and 403:
(1) any isolated non-issuer transaction, whether effected through a broker-dealer or not;
(2) any non-issuer transaction;
(A) by a registered agent of a registered broker-dealer, and any resale transaction by a sponsor of a unit investment trust registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940, in a security of a class that has been outstanding in the hands of the public for at least 90 days provided, at the time of the transaction:
(i) the issuer of the security is actually engaged in business and not in the organizational stage or in bankruptcy or receivership and is not a blank check, blind pool or shell company whose primary plan of business is to engage in a merger or combination of the business with, or an acquisition of, an unidentified person or persons;
(ii) the security is sold at a price reasonably related to the current market price of the security;
(iii) the security does not constitute the whole or part of an unsold allotment to, or a subscription or participation by, the broker-dealer as an underwriter of the security;
(iv) a nationally recognized securities manual designated by rule or order of the secretary or a document filed with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission hereinafter referred to as SEC which is publicly available through the SEC's Electronic Data Gathering and Retrieval System and contains:
(a) a description of the business and operations of the issuer;
(b) the names of the issuer's officers and the names of the issuer's directors, if any, or, in the case of a non-U.S. issuer, the corporate equivalents of such persons in the issuer's country of domicile;
(c) an audited balance sheet of the issuer as of a date within 18 months, or in the case of a reorganization or merger where parties to the reorganization or merger had such audited balance sheets, a pro forma balance sheet; and
(d) an audited income statement for each of the issuer's immediately preceding 2 fiscal years, or for the period of existence of the issuer, if in existence for less than 2 years or, in the case of a reorganization or merger where the parties to the reorganization or merger had such audited income statements, a pro forma income statement; and
(v) the issuer of the security has a class of equity securities listed on a national securities exchange registered under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, or designated for trading on the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation System, unless:
(a) the issuer of the security is a unit investment trust registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940; or
(b) the issuer of the security has been engaged in continuous business, including predecessors, for at least 3 years; or
(c) the issuer of the security has total assets of at least $2,000,000 based on an audited balance sheet as of a date within 18 months or, in the case of a reorganization or merger where parties to the reorganization or merger had such audited balance sheets, a pro forma balance sheet; or
(B) in a security by a registered agent of a registered broker-dealer if:
(i) the issuer of the security is actually engaged in business and not in the organizational stage or in bankruptcy or receivership and is not a blank check, blind pool or shell company whose primary plan of business is to engage in a merger or combination of the business with, or an acquisition of, an unidentified person or persons; and
(ii) the security is senior in rank to the common stock of the issuer both as to payment of dividends or interest and upon dissolution or liquidation of the issuer and such security has been outstanding at least 3 years and the issuer or any predecessors has not defaulted within the current fiscal year or the 3 immediately preceding fiscal years in the payment of any dividend, interest, principal, or sinking fund installment on the security when due and payable; or
(C) in an outstanding security if the issuer of the security has a class of securities subject to registration under section 12 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and has been subject to the reporting requirements of section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 for not less than 180 days before the transaction; or has a class of securities registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940; or has filed and maintained with the secretary for not less than 180 days before the transaction information substantially comparable to the information which the issuer would be required to file under section 12(b) or section 12(g) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 were the issuer to have a class of its securities registered under section 12 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, in such form as the secretary by rule provides; or
(D) in a federal covered security pursuant to section 18(b)(4)(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 or the regulations promulgated thereunder.
(3) any non-issuer transaction effected by or through a registered broker-dealer pursuant to an unsolicited order or offer to buy; but the secretary may by rule require that the customer acknowledge upon a specified form that the sale was unsolicited, and that a signed copy of each such form be preserved by the broker-dealer for a specified period;
(4) any transaction between the issuer or other person on whose behalf the offering is made and an underwriter, or among underwriters;
(5) any transaction in a bond or other evidence of indebtedness secured by a real or chattel mortgage or deed of trust, or by an agreement for the sale of real estate or chattels, if the entire mortgage, deed of trust, or agreement, together with all the bonds or other evidences of indebtedness secured thereby, is offered and sold as a unit;
(6) any transaction by an executor, administrator, sheriff, marshal, receiver, trustee in bankruptcy, guardian, or conservator;
(7) any transaction executed by a bona fide pledgee without any purpose of evading this chapter;
(8) any offer or sale to a bank, savings institution, trust company, insurance company, investment company as defined in the Investment Company Act of 1940, pension or profitsharing trust, or other financial institution or institutional buyer, or to a broker-dealer, whether the purchaser is acting for itself or in some fiduciary capacity;
(9) any transaction pursuant to an offer directed by the offeror to not more than 25 persons other than those designated in clause (8) in the commonwealth during any period of 12 consecutive months, whether or not the offeror or any of the offerees is then present in the commonwealth, if: (A) the seller reasonably believes that all the buyers in the commonwealth, other than those designated in said clause (8), are purchasing for investment, and (B) insofar as an offer involves the payment directly or indirectly of any commission or other remuneration for soliciting any prospective buyer in the commonwealth, other than those designated in said clause (8), a notice is filed with the secretary at least 5 full business days before the offer, and the secretary does not by order disallow the exemption within the next 5 full business days; but, in any event, the secretary may by rule or order, as to any security or transaction or any type of security or transaction, withdraw or further condition this exemption, or increase or decrease the number of offerees permitted, or waive the conditions in subclauses (A) and (B) with or without the substitution of a limitation on remuneration.
(10) any offer or sale of a preorganization certificate or subscription if (A) no commission or other remuneration is paid or given directly or indirectly for soliciting any prospective subscriber, (B) the number of subscribers does not exceed ten, and (C) no payment is made by any subscriber;
(11) any transaction pursuant to an offer to existing security holders of the issuer, including persons who at the time of the transaction are holders of convertible securities, nontransferable warrants, or transferable warrants exercisable within not more than ninety days of their issuance, if (A) no commission or other remuneration, other than a standby commission, is paid or given directly or indirectly for soliciting any security holder in this commonwealth, or (B) the issuer first files a notice specifying the terms of the offer and the secretary does not by order disallow the exemption within the next five full business days;
(12) any offer, but not a sale, of a security for which registration statements have been filed under both this chapter and the Securities Act of 1933 if no stop order or refusal order is in effect and no public proceeding or examination looking toward such an order is pending under such chapter or act;
(13) any other transaction that the secretary by rule or order may exempt, conditionally or unconditionally, on a finding that registration is not necessary or appropriate in the public interest or for the protection of investors.
(c) The secretary may by order deny or revoke any exemption specified in clause (9) or (11) of subsection (a) or in subsection (b) with respect to a specific security or transaction. No such order may be entered without appropriate prior notice to all interested parties, opportunity for hearing, and written findings of fact and conclusions of law, except that the secretary may by order summarily deny or revoke any of the specified exemptions pending final determination of any proceeding under this subsection. Upon the entry of a summary order, the secretary shall promptly notify all interested parties that it has been entered and of the reasons therefor and that within fifteen days of the receipt of a written request the matter will be set down for hearing. If no hearing is requested and none is ordered by the secretary, the order will remain in effect until it is modified or vacated by the secretary. If a hearing is requested or ordered, the secretary, after notice of and opportunity for hearing to all interested persons, may modify or vacate the order or extend it until final determination. No order under this subsection may operate retroactively. No person may be considered to have violated section 301 or 403 by reason of any offer or sale effected after the entry of an order under this subsection if he sustains the burden of proof that he did not know, and in the exercise of reasonable care could not have known, of the order.
(d) In any proceeding under this chapter, the burden of proving an exemption or an exception from a definition is upon the person claiming it.