The House Regulatory Review Subcommittee voted unanimously to advance House Bill 4247 on a voice/hand-raise vote, moving the proposal to the full committee for further consideration.

The bill would transfer administration of South Carolina’s commodity code from the Secretary of State to the Attorney General’s Office and update the commodities statute to mirror provisions of the Uniform Securities Act, proponents said. "Moving the administration of the commodity code to the attorney general's office would improve efficiency," Shannon Wiley, general counsel and public information director for the Secretary of State's office, told the subcommittee.

Jonathan Williams, head of the Attorney General's securities enforcement division, described the overlap between commodities and securities enforcement and the legislative history behind the change. Williams said the securities act and the commodities code were formerly administered together and that in 1996 the Securities Act moved to the Attorney General's Office while the commodity code remained elsewhere. He said the commodities statute has older provisions that have not been updated to match later securities changes and that recent enforcement cases—often involving precious-metals fraud aimed at retirees—have been led by the Attorney General's Office. "This bill brings the commodities code over to the Attorney General's office and then updates the commodities code to mirror the uniform securities act," Williams said.

Williams and Wiley said no additional full-time employees would be required because commodities enforcement actions are largely intertwined with securities investigations the Attorney General's Office already conducts. The subcommittee chair called the measure at hand, members moved and seconded the motion to advance the bill, and the chair recorded the motion as unanimously supported with no opposing votes. The clerk will forward HB 4247 to the full committee for scheduling and further debate.

Background: witnesses and staff traced the mismatch to a line-item move in 1996 and to a 2006 update of the Securities Act that the commodities code did not receive. Proponents argue the shift would reduce duplication and speed litigation in overlapping fraud cases; supporters pointed to recent cases involving precious metals and retirees as examples of where the Attorney General already leads investigations.

No amendments were adopted on the subcommittee floor and no formal fiscal analysis or effective-date language was set during the session. Further technical edits and fiscal review are likely as the bill proceeds to full committee.