Year: 2009

New York Public Pension Funds’ Regulation No. 85

The Superintendent of Insurance of the State of New York promulgated  the Second amendment to Part 136 of Chapter IX of Title 11 of the Official Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations of the State of New York (Regulation No. 85) (.pdf) in October 0f 2008. The regulation is intended to have the business of the state retirement systems comply with these principles:

  1. the retirement system and the fund shall operate under a strong governance framework with a rigorous system of internal controls;
  2. the retirement system and the fund shall maintain a high level of operational transparency;
  3. the Comptroller shall adhere to and manage the retirement system and the fund with the highest ethical, professional and conflict of interest standards;
  4. the Comptroller shall have a fiduciary responsibility to act for the sole benefit of the retirement system’s members and beneficiaries; and
  5. the retirement system and the fund shall be managed in the most efficient and effective manner possible.

The regulation requires investment managers to promptly disclose any conflict of interest that “reasonably be expected to impair the investment manager’s, or consultant or advisor’s ability to render unbiased and objective advice”. [11 NYCRR 136-2.4(c)(1)(i)].

The regulation also requires investment advisers to file an annual statement with the following language:

“ALL INVESTMENT MANAGERS, AND CONSULTANTS OR ADVISORS OWE THE COMPTROLLER A FIDUCIARY DUTY. THIS MEANS THAT INVESTMENT MANAGERS, OR CONSULTANTS OR ADVISORS MUST DISCLOSE TO THE COMPTROLLER INFORMATION ABOUT MATERIAL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST. FAILURE TO TRUTHFULLY COMPLETE THIS STATEMENT MAY RESULT IN CRIMINAL OR CIVIL LIABILITIES”. [11 NYCRR 136-2.4(c)(1)(ii)]

The regulation also requires an investment manager to disclose the payments made to any placement agent or intermediary that assists the investment manager in obtaining investments by the Fund.[11 NYCRR 136-2.4(d)]

The New York State Comptroller, Thomas P. DiNapoli, also releases monthly reports that disclose in detail investments and transactions, hiring of fund managers, and the involvement of placement agents: Disclosure of Investments & Transactions.

Lawyers and Twitter

I am user of Twitter.

For those of you unfamiliar with Twitter, you can think of it as a combination of blogging and instant messaging. Each post or tweet is limited to 140 characters so you can send tweets by text message. Like most social media, it is cheap (free and currently free of advertising) and very easy to use (there are only a few buttons).

Steve Matthews wrote a great post on an intro to Lawyer Marketing with Twitter. Kevin O’Keefe followed that up with his own perspective and success stories in Lawyer Marketing with Twitter Has Arrived.

Like both Steve and Kevin, I’ve had a few Twitter moments and find it useful to engage people through this communications platform. In this era of new ways to communicate beyond email, Twitter is a great avenue to communicate and share information.

Rather than duplicating what Steve and Kevin said about Twitter (you should go read both stories), I have two additional features that I like about Twitter.

First, it is very compatible with other platforms. The flow of tweets is available through RSS. For example, Twitter ties into Facebook and updates my Facebook status. I have a Twitter widget on this blog showing my most recent tweets. I also have a Twitter widget running on my intranet page.

Second, tweets are indexed and returned by internet searches. All of that good stuff in my tweets, gets returned in a Google search, just like posts on this blog. You are sharing beyond the Twitter universe.

To learn more about Twitter there is a great video from Common Craft, Twitter Explained. Once you join Twitter, feel free to follow me on Twitter: @dougcornelius.

Originally posted at KM Space.