Earlier this year the Securities and Exchange Commission announced a new initiative encouraging cooperation. They wanted to start using Cooperation Agreements, Deferred Prosecution Agreements, and Non-prosecution Agreements. They finally got use one of their shiny new tools. The SEC announced that Tenaris S.A. entered into a Deferred Prosecution Agreement. The SEC alleged that Tenaris, a … Read more »
Year: 2011
Will Private Equity be Exempted from Registration?
In earlier versions of Dodd-Frank, when it was being formulated in the House committee, there was an exemption for private equity fund managers from registration under the Investment Advisers Act. It also had an exemption for venture capital fund managers. Only the venture capital exemption managed to survive. Of the many attempts to cut back … Read more »
Is the SEC Going to Reform Advertising Rules?
Advertising and corporate communications is a rough area for compliance when used in capital formation. The rules are restrictive, not always intuitive, often vague, and in direct opposition to the revenue-hungry side of the company. Last week, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform heard testimony on “how securities regulations have harmed public and … Read more »
Compliance Bits and Pieces for May 13
These are some compliance related stories that recently caught my attention. Are Girl Scout Cookies Evil? by Chris MacDonald in the Business Ethics Blog Well, apparently nothing is safe from criticism. Girl Guide cookies, as it turns out, are under attack for being made with palm oil, a tropical oil the production of which has … Read more »
Raj is Guilty. Nobody Is Surprised.
If you read about the evidence, you can’t really be surprised that Raj Rajaratnam was found guilty of insider trading. That he was found guilty on all counts was mildly interesting, but not much. We may get some interesting new legal developments in insider trading law from the appellate decisions. But probably not. The case … Read more »
The SEC Is Making it Harder for Investment Advisers to Earn Performance Fees
The Securities and Exchange Commission is proposing to raise the dollar thresholds for someone to be considered a “qualified client.” The definition of a qualified client is set out in Rule 205-3. This is an exemption to the Section 205(a)(1) general prohibition on performance fees. Section 205(e) grants the SEC the power to create an … Read more »
The House Financial Services Committee Wants to be Your Friend
Congressman Bachus must have let one of his grandkids near the computer. The House Committee on Financial Services, of which Congressman Bachus is the chairman, has jumped into the world of social media. They have a Twitter feed, a YouTube Channel, a Facebook page and a blog: The Bottom Line. Even though the SEC has … Read more »
Are Real Estate Fund Managers Registered with the SEC?
Last year, I looked a the top 30 real estate private equity fund managers to see which are already registered with the SEC. The 2011 version of the PERE 30 just came out, so I decided to look at the list again. (Disclosure: my company is on the list.) It was mostly re-shuffling, but three … Read more »
Compliance Bits and Pieces for May 6
Here are some compliance-related stories that recently caught my eye: Investing in an ethical corporate culture by Aarti Maharaj in Corporate Secretary Companies are starting to distinguish between non-financial and financial risks in order to continue improving their overall governance and business structures. But non-financial risks, such as ethics, still don’t get the attention they … Read more »
Near Misses, Catastrophes, and Compliance
The theme of the April edition of the Harvard Business Review is “Failure.” As scary as that term is in the world of compliance, “catastrophe” is even scarier. That means that the failure resulted is real, significant damage. But you can learn from failures. You can especially learn from others’ failures. In How to Avoid … Read more »