When can a regional center facilitate contact between EB-5 investors?

If the regional center controls the new commercial enterprise which receives the investor&#39s funds (the Issuer) they can contact EB-5 investors and discuss questions concerning the viability of the EB-5 projects. Existing investors may give permission to the regional center (the Issuer) to arrange contact with a potential investor in order to discuss immigration due diligence and their success with the I-526 process and their opinion on the business viability of the EB-5 project.

A regional center investor - unless this person happens to be a licensed broker, which is extremely unlikely - is not qualified to give advice regarding investments and whether one should invest in a particular project or not. An investor may, of course, volunteer to have his/her information forwarded to prospective investors to discuss his/her experience (e.g., ease of communication with the regional center, helpfulness of the staff, etc.) in investing in this particular project. Again, this would not involve giving advice about whether one should invest in this project. This is a risky engagement for both the regional center and current/past investor and an unreliable source of info for a prospective investor. I would not advise my client (a regional center or an investor) to pursue this.

I see no problem with giving out the name of a prior investor, with their permission of course, to show your project as viable.

Only if both parties agree.

Generally a regional center should not get other investors in contact with each other as it might violate rules of confidentiality. But if an investor is open to speak to other people then it waives that right.

There are restrictions on who can speak to potential investors and how you can reach out to them. Facilitating contact between a prospective investor and one who has received an approval may fall into the "probably not" category of permissible actions.

Contact between a regional center and investors will be driven by a number of factors, including the nature of communications, who is making the communications and whether there is a broker-dealer involved in the placement of the offering. Whoever communicates with the investors will in virtually all instances be subject to the anti-fraud provisions of state and federal securities laws. You can exempt yourself from those or claim they do not apply to you.