# Corporations Equity Administrators New Feature

## What’s new

Public markets administrators can now designate employee groups that require company approval before trading through Carta’s pre-clearance tool.

Unlike blackout periods, which are in effect for sensitive time periods, pre-clearance applies at all times that the seller is configured to require it. Pre-clearance allows issuers to proactively review and approve or reject seller trade requests when the company is in an open trading window.

## Who this affects

Public company administrators, and the sellers that public companies configure to require pre-clearance.

## How it works

Pre-clearance populations are designated at the officer code level. Any seller associated with an officer code requiring pre-clearance (with an effective officer code as-of date) will require pre-clearance to trade.

Sellers that are associated with an officer code that requires pre-clearance will be presented with trading request instructions upon portfolio login:

If sellers are not in a blackout period and are only prevented from trading due to pre-clearance, they will be able to request the ability to trade.

After the seller submits a pre-clearance request, the seller will see a Pending status in the portfolio while the issuer reviews the trading request:

- The seller will remain in trade request pending status until the issuer grants pre-clearance.
- Upon request, the issuer receives an email notification that pre-clearance requests are pending.

The issuer navigates to the Pre-Clearance tool to review and either accept or reject the request:

- Clicking Respond allows the issuer to accept or reject the request:

- If the issuer rejects the pre-clearance request, the seller will again have the ability to request pre-clearance and will not be able to place trades.
- If the issuer approves the pre-clearance request, the seller is able to place trades until the pre-clearance window expires.
- Pre-clearance approval is shown in the Open tab. Issuers are able to close a pre-clearance request early if needed.

Sellers can enter Cashless sale transactions and stock sales until pre-clearance expires.

## Timing

The pre-clearance feature is now available to all public companies.