Topeka ? Two lawyer groups oppose an overhaul of Kansas’ securities law because it grants investors only one year after making an investment to raise certain complaints.

The groups want Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to veto the bill. They say it doesn’t give an investor enough time to discover a problem with a long-term investment before the proposed statute of limitations on violations of securities registration rules would run out.

“They won’t know whether they’ve lost money for close to a year,” said Roger Walter, who represented the Kansas Bar Assn. in testimony on the bill before the governor.

Members of the Kansas Bar and the Kansas Trial Lawyers Assn. asked for a veto Wednesday in a meeting with the governor’s chief counsel. A spokeswoman for Sebelius said she would review and consider all relevant information before deciding.

Sebelius can sign or veto the law as late as Monday, after which it would become law without her input. The law would not take effect until 2005.

Proponents stood by the lengthy bill on which they’ve worked for two years.

Chris Biggs, Kansas securities commissioner, said the bill accomplishes important investor protections, notably in criminal cases. Biggs likened a veto at this stage to throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

“There’s a lot of good things in the bill that we should get,” said Biggs, a former prosecutor appointed by Sebelius as securities commissioner last year. The proposed one-year statute of limitations applies to civil cases that rely on Kansas’ requirement that any securities sold in the state must be registered first.

Registration ensures that promoters will provide investors all the information they need to judge the investment, and block unwarranted investment offerings from reaching investors. Missouri and Kansas securities officials recommend that investors always check whether a security is registered in the state before investing.

Securities attorneys say the registration requirement gives them an easier path to seek recovery of an investor’s losses in cases of fraud. Failing to register the security makes the seller liable and is relatively simple to prove, said Diane Nygaard, a lawyer in Kansas City who represents investors.

But the bill would require an investor to file a nonregistration case within a year of purchasing the investment. Nygaard said that’s not enough time to uncover many frauds. Kansas law currently gives investors three years to bring such a complaint.

“One of these stock promoters can keep somebody happy for a while,” Nygaard said.

A wronged investor still would be able to pursue a fraud complaint after one year, but Nygaard said that shifts the burden to the investor and becomes a much more difficult case to win.

Biggs said his office wouldn’t be bound by the one-year limit and could pursue a nonregistration action on behalf of defrauded investors.

“We still have that authority under this bill to order restitution,” Biggs said.

Walter, a former general counsel in the Kansas securities commissioner’s office, said Biggs lacks the resources to pursue the many cases that investors bring privately.