What Is Effective Date?

什么是生效日期？

In contract law, the effective date is the date that an agreement or transaction between or among signatories becomes binding. For an initial public offering (IPO), it is the date when shares can first be traded on an exchange.

在合同法中，生效日期是签署方之间的协议或交易具有约束力的日期。对于首次公开发行（IPO）来说，这是股票首次在交易所交易的日期。

Understanding Effective Dates

关于生效日期

Business agreements and transactions are documented with effective dates, which are the times when parties to the contract begin their obligations to perform under the contract. These contracts can be in the form of employment agreements, credit or loan agreements, or commercial transaction deals. As far as the effective "date" is concerned, the parties will decide whether the contract should officially begin on the date of signing, on a date that has already passed (backdating), or on a future date.

商业协议和交易均记录有生效日期，即合同各方开始履行合同义务的时间。这些合同可以是雇佣协议、信贷或贷款协议或商业交易协议。就生效“日期”而言，双方将决定合同是否应在签署之日、已经过去的日期（回溯日期）或未来某个日期正式开始。

For a company that wants to go public, the effective date occurs within 30 days after the security is registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), giving time for the SEC to review the Form S-1 registration for completeness of disclosure so that prospective investors can make informed decisions. During this review period, the SEC can ask questions, request clarifications or instruct the company to fill or amend certain sections of the filing.

对于想要上市的公司来说，生效日期通常发生在证券在美国证券交易委员会（SEC）登记后的30天内，这使SEC有时间审查S-1登记表的披露完整性，以便潜在投资者可以做出明智的决定。在此审查期间，SEC可以提出问题、要求澄清或指示公司填写或修改文件的某些部分。

Examples of Effective Dates

生效日期示例

The IPO process is tightly controlled by the SEC. Twilio Inc. filed for an IPO on May 26, 2016. Shortly after, the company submitted an amended filing, taking care to print on the cover page of the prospectus the following:

首次公开发行过程受到美国证券交易委员会的严格管控。Twilio Inc.于2016年5月26日申请IPO。不久后，该公司提交了一份经修订的文件，并特意在招股说明书的封面上印刷了以下内容：

The Registrant hereby amends this registration statement on such date or dates as may be necessary to delay its effective date until the Registrant shall file a further amendment which specifically states that this registration statement shall thereafter become effective in accordance with Section 8(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 or until the registration statement shall become effective on such date as the Securities and Exchange Commission, acting pursuant to said Section 8(a), may determine.

登记人特此在必要的日期修订本登记声明，以延迟其生效日期，直到登记人提交进一步的修订文件，其中明确说明本登记声明将根据1933年《证券法》第8(a)节的规定生效，或者直到证券交易委员会根据上述第8(a)节的规定确定登记声明的生效日期。

The effective date turned out to be June 23, 2016. Twilio's shares began trading that day.

生效日期是2016年6月23日。Twilio的股票于当天开始交易。

On websites, effective dates are often found in the terms and conditions and privacy policies. Unless a company makes a special effort to create an individual agreement with a very specialized end-user or group of end-users, terms and conditions (or terms of use) and a privacy policy will apply to all users of a given website or internet platform.

在网站上，生效日期通常出现在条款和条件以及隐私政策中。除非公司做出特别努力与专业化的最终用户或最终用户组签订单独协议，否则条款和条件（或使用条款）以及隐私政策将适用于特定网站或互联网平台的所有用户。

Users are usually required to accept the terms and conditions when they download an associated app or log on to a website. Those terms should not be different from terms given to and read by any other use at any other time unless those terms are updated and all users are asked to approve the revised terms.

当用户下载相关应用程序或登录网站时，通常需要接受条款和条件。除非更新这些条款并要求所有用户批准修订后的条款，否则这些条款不应与在任何其他时间提供给任何其他用户并由其阅读的条款有所不同。

In such situations, the effective date for terms and conditions and privacy policy agreements is not when the user agrees to it, but when the terms were last updated. For these types of agreements, these dates are not indicated by “effective date” but “last revision” or “last updated.”

在这种情况下，条款和条件以及隐私政策协议的生效日期不是用户同意的日期，而是条款最后更新的日期。对于此类型的协议，这些日期不是由“生效日期”表示的，而是由“最近修订”或“最近更新”日期表示的。

（英文来源：Investopedia）