(Article from Registered Funds Regulatory Update, January 2026)
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On November 17, 2025, the SEC issued an order granting exemptive relief for a registered fund seeking to offer both mutual fund and ETF share classes in a single vehicle. The approval follows the SEC’s public notice of its intent to approve the application on September 29, 2025.
This concludes a 28-month application process for the registered fund, whose initial filing was in July 2023 and was amended three times. The formal release accompanying the decision stated that the matter was considered and the application accepted because “granting the requested exemptions is appropriate in the public interest and consistent with the protection of investors and the purposes fairly intended by the policy and provisions of the [‘40] act.”
DFA is the first firm to receive approval since Vanguard was granted access to the structure in 2000. The SEC’s decision follows the expiration of a patent, held by Vanguard for over two decades, that permitted Vanguard to offer dual share classes on its index-tracking funds; the patent, effectively barring its competitors from offering this revolutionary dual structure until its expiration in May 2023.
The exemptive relief is subject to a number of conditions, including a three-part governance framework that requires the fund’s board to actively evaluate the ongoing fairness and benefits of the structure by reviewing reports from the investment adviser and finding that the dual share plan remains in the best interest of the fund and its individual share classes.
On December 17, 2025, the SEC issued a combined notice to an additional thirty firms of its intent to approve their applications, pending any public request for a hearing into the applications.
In the Matter of DFA Investment Dimensions Group Inc., et al. (File No. 812-15484),
Release No. IC-35786 (Nov. 17, 2025).
Notice of Application under Section 6(c) of the 1940 Act, Multi-Class ETF Fund Exemptive Relief under the Investment Company Act of 1940, Investment Co. Act Release No. 35834 (Dec. 17, 2025), available at: https://www.sec.gov/files/rules/ic/2025/ic-35834.pdf.