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Johny Fernandez: You know what I
am surprised about though. I am

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surprised about this of Virginia
hopping on the bandwagon of

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commercial finance EPR
disclosures?

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Sean Murray: Yes, that's right.

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Johny Fernandez: That's what I'm
shocked about. Because it's

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coming. What I'm starting to
see, we've talked about this

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last year. And now that it seems
like certain states are starting

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to like, really, what's your
smile? I don't know. What's the

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word? I'm sorry. He's just
smiling at me.

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Sean Murray: I don't know. Yeah,
I don't know. Yeah, no, but I'm

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still I still can't get over
whether I want to find out. When

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I give my two cents on this
bill. I want to find out if you

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were, if you're shocked

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Johny Fernandez: That you are.
I'm not surprised that you were

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shocked okay. But on a serious
note, Virginia's pretty much

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gonna piggy you. It's joining
the bandwagon of what New York

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is doing? Yeah, we're you
shocked?

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Sean Murray: Was I shocked. So I
don't know that I would if I was

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necessarily shocked yet, because
the bill is in such early stages

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that from what I understand, it
only has one sponsor. Okay, so

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the bill is going to have a lot
of legs to it. From the very

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beginning, you usually have
several sponsors who are all

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like, yes, I want my name
attached to it from the

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beginning. So that, you know, it
becomes my bill and your bill

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going around. And you know, and
say that this was our signature.

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You know, this is our one of our
signature achievements of this

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future ones. Yeah, I've only
seen one sponsor attached to the

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bill. I don't even think it's
even gone into any committees

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yet. So we're talking about
super early stages. But the

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reason we reported on it is
because it's good to know that

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these things are in the works
from the very beginning, because

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as we saw in New York, even
though we reported on its

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progress along the way, people
people were still shocked when

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it actually passed. In fact,
when we reported that it passed,

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and these were the ramifications
some people told us, we must be

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lying cause they had not heard
anything about it, even though

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we've talked about it for
months. So, you know, what else

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can we do? Other than bring it
to people's attention? That's

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all we do. We report the news. A
member of the Virginia's state

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legislature did introduce a bill
on commercial financing, APR

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disclosure. It's not as
comprehensive as the New York

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one. It's like, it's like a
trimmed down stripped down

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version. Yeah, that focuses
entirely on sales based

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financing, otherwise known as
revenue based financing, or as

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some people call it merchant
cash advance. So it's targeting

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one very specific thing.

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Johny Fernandez: So we want to
get even more specific. It's

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Virginia, Virginia House Bill
1027. And it's aimed squarely at

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sales based financing provided.

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Sean Murray: Yeah, so that's the
term of use sales based

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financing. That's been the key
word in a lot of the in a lot of

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the state proposals, sales based
financing. They're basically

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saying, if you're taking a if
you're looking at someone's

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revenue, and you're buying
buying some of their future

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sales, or taking a percentage of
your future revenue, as

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repayment that this counts as
sales based financing, that's

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aimed very specifically at one
area of the finance market. And

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that's where that's where at
least one Virginia state

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legislator has, you know, put
their attention on, we'll see

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what happens to it could be
nothing. But I don't want to not

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tell people, if we know it's in
the works, because the earlier

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you know about something, the
better. So we don't end up with

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a New York situation where the
bill passes. Everyone says that

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can't be I've never heard of it.
So that's, that's what's going

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on in Virginia.

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Johny Fernandez: Yeah. And
speaking of New York, I know,

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it's one of those things that
even the New York regulators,

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they also saw that, like the,
the, you know, what they've

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introduced is, is still weak. I
mean, it's not one of those

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things that, you know, they have
everything figured out, the

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language is great. There's still
a lot of questions regarding

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that, and, and how it's going to
affect the business. And like,

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you know, I think the one thing
that keeps coming to mind,

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right, when I think about the
New York bill is like, if you

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live in Florida, and there's a
transaction in New York and your

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deal touches New York, do you
still technically get impacted

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even if like, you know, it's
like things like that like? And

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then the other thing, were the
comments, you know, in New York,

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like, again, the bill has
passed, but it's still

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technically weak, because
there's still a lot of

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questions. And I think that's
what's interesting about the

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Virginia law, even though it's
still fairly new,

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Sean Murray: It's just a bill.
It's just a it's just an idea.

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Johny Fernandez: It's an idea
that they are probably looking

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at Maryland, they're probably
going to New York and kind of

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seeing how that's resulted. And
clearly that hasn't resulted in

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the best for the for them,
because a lot, there's still a

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lot of questions for everything.

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Sean Murray: Yeah, you bring up
a really good point, because

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here you have Virginia copying
and pasting huge segments of the

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New York, of the New York law.
I'm like, we'll do that too. But

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New York would have benefited
from a lot of earlier

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correspondence with people who
it was going to affect because

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what are they have, as you just
said, it's weak and people have

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all these questions, weak in the
terms of nobody knows how you

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know who it applies to is just
our theres a lot of questions.

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It's too ambiguous. And so what
did New York regulators do? They

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actually said, Oh, I know we'll
just call another state that

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implemented something similar.
So they call the regulators in

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California, who passed their own
disclosure bill like four years

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ago. And they said, Well, what
did you guys do? And they said,

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We didn't know what to do. We
couldn't fix this thing. We've

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been working on it for four
years, New York is like, you got

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to be kidding me. Right? Four
years, you had you had had this

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on your desk, you wouldn't able
to figure it out. We're stuck

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with implementing this, like in
a week from now. Never gonna

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happen. So they delayed the
bill, then then you have

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Virginia saying, oh, we'll, copy
New York, but New York doesn't

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know what to do. California
didn't know what to do. And

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nobody knows what to do. But
everyone's creating bills to do

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oh, we need to disclose. But it
seems like people would these

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states, not saying that their
initiatives are bad or acting in

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bad faith, but they it seems
like they would certainly

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benefit from communicating with
the party that's going to impact

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from the very beginning, before
they passed the law. Because we

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as we're seeing so far the law
gets passed, and then everyone

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say, Oh, this isn't gonna work.

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Johny Fernandez: Yeah, no, it's
true. I think one of the things

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that was very, very interesting
was that, you know, for one of

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these meetings that you know,
they have, they were asking, you

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know, the leaders, you know, the
state leaders, and a lot of the

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state leaders are like, confused
themselves, like, what does this

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mean? Or like, what is the
verbiage of this are just,

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they're just trying to
understand the gauge of the

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entire industry, and they don't
even know. And it's like,

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there's a lot of unknowns, it's
across the board,

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Sean Murray: You can't pass it
can't pass the law and not know

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anything. Not understanding it,
it's, you really need to

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understand, talk to the relevant
people, you will find if you're

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out there and your a regulator
and your watching, you will find

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that so many people involved in
this industry, are very

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interested in passing some sort
of regulation to address the

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issues that you are, are
concerned with. Yeah. Which is

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great news, because they're not
combative. They're not opposed

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to something, right. But it
seems like from what we've

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gathered, it would it would, it
would serve everyone's interests

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better if there was
communication a lot more early

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in the process, so that we don't
end up with situations where

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there are laws passed, and then
no one knows what to do.

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Johny Fernandez: And I think the
other thing that's interesting

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is that the communication not
only has to be within the area

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of state leaders, but also to
the constituents that, you know,

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want to chime in or like, like
in New York, it's like, hey,

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let's open up the comments area.
And then everyone's like, oh, we

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didn't even know, like, we even
know that was happening. We

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didn't know where to go. And we
didn't know there was a

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deadline, the deadline passed.
So it's like, at the end of the

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day, it's just a big clustered
mess,

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Sean Murray: Isn't it? It's so
weird. That's their hey, let's

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open it up to comments after the
law is passed. And like, oh,

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like ah, and you've done this
before the law was passed. Now

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the law has already passed. And
then like they take comments.

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Hey, what do you guys think of
this? Oh, it's not gonna work.

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Oh, it's already the law.

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Johny Fernandez: So it's
interesting. I'm definitely

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gonna be interested in I say
this all the time about what's

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gonna be happening in Virginia
because I want to see how this

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is going to evolve.

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Sean Murray: Yeah, and I we will
keep everyone updated as to

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whether or not one of us is
shocked by the developments,

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Johny Fernandez: You know, maybe
I'm not gonna be shocked. Are

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you gonna be shocked? We'll find
out find out in

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Sean Murray: Tune in tune in for
my reaction. And Johnny's

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analysis of it