On July 10, 2013, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) fulfilled its Congressional mandate by adopting new rules that will dramatically affect the landscape for unregistered securities offerings in the United States. These new rules authorize the use of general advertising and general solicitation methods in accredited investor-only offerings under the newly amended Rule 506. Historically, securities offerings that were not registered with the SEC were uniformly described as “private offerings,” because that was their common identifying feature – the securities could not be publicly offered. With the adoption of new Rule 506(c), that common understanding has been eliminated.