The Securities and Exchange Commission held a roundtable on July 9, 2020 on investing in emerging markets.

Participants with a very wide range of perspectives addressed three concentric circles of topics:

• At the core is the regulatory impasse between the United States and China over the ability of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) to conduct inspections and investigations of Chinese auditing firms.
• More broadly, many participants discussed whether there are specific risks involved in investing in Chinese businesses with equity securities trading on U.S. exchanges.
• At the most general level, the discussion addressed risks of “investing in emerging markets,” a term that participants used in different ways.

This memorandum summarizes some themes from the discussion and identifies questions about possible future regulatory developments.