Compliance Bricks and Mortar for April 24

These are some of the compliance-related stories that recently caught my attention.

Investors Turn to Big Real-Estate Funds by Peter Grant in the Wall Street Journal

Investors are pouring more money into real-estate funds than they have since the property bust, but a few giant fund firms are collecting the lion’s share of the spoils. Pension funds, endowments and other big institutional investors are putting more cash into private-equity firms with large real-estate funds and strong track records, leaving smaller firms to fight over the scraps.

TriBeCa Developer Settles with AG’s Office over Unregistered Real Estate Securities by Rodney F. Tonkovic, J.D. in Jim Hamilton’s World of Securities Regulation

According to the complaint, 39 Lispenard acted as an unregistered syndicator of securities with regard to two buildings in TriBeCa, New York, NY. 39 Lispenard acted as an unregistered sponsor of realty in the offering and sale of condominium units in those buildings without filing an offering plan as required under New York law. According to the office’s press release, Moore blatantly procured investors in an unregistered syndication, hiring a prominent real estate firm in order to reach a wide audience.

Advocacy Groups Looking for an SEC Superhero by Bruce Carton in Compliance Week

Today, it appears, the SEC chair must be prepared for far more creative scrutiny, and in very different venues. On his blog today, Broc Romanek included a photo of a poster ad in the Union Station Metro station near the SEC’s headquarters.  To make a long story short, the ad below is an appeal to SEC Chair Mary Jo White from an advocacy group for her to help stomp out the menace of “dark money.”

Two Regulatory Crises by David Smyth in Cady Bar the Door

It strikes me that two civil regulators are facing dire attacks on aspects of their enforcement programs – both in different U.S. Courts of Appeals – at the same time. Both of these attacks arise out of generalized statutes that only sort of address the problems the regulators seek to remedy. To some degree, how these matters are resolved will determine whether these enforcement portfolios are reinvigorated or whither on the vine. In both cases a Congressional fix could be in order.