Doug Cornelius on compliance for private equity real estate
Cheryl Kramer had some kind of a relationship with a senior employee of Sage Therapeutics. That friend received the news at work that the FDA was making a material limitation on one of its drugs. That news was very bad news. The friend told Ms. Kramer. Ms. Kramer sold the Sage stock that she had….
Gary Steven Costello was registered representative and investment adviser representative. He invested and traded for his clients. He traded for himself. He wasn’t very good. From January 2023 through July 2023, Mr. Costello’s personal trading was unprofitable and resulted in substantial margin calls. What to do? I stand-up guy would find a way to fund…
The Division of Examinations in the Securities and Exchange Commission pushed out a new risk alert focused on Investment Adviser Annual Compliance Reviews. SEC-registered investment advisers have been required toconduct a review of their compliance policies and procedures at least annually to assess their adequacy and theeffectiveness of their implementation pursuant to the “Compliance Rule”…
Pay $500,000. Get Censured. Independent Financial Group was a dually registered broker-dealer and investment adviser. It had investment discretion over at least $100 million in reportable securities under Rule 13f and met the definition of “institutional investment manager” under section 13(f). The firm reached that threshold in December 2021. That triggers the requirement of filing…
The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission jointly agreed to further extend the compliance deadline from October 1, 2026 to July 1, 2027. That means it will not be a 2027 item for annual filers. “Commission staff have been carefully reviewing the comments submitted in response to the amendments, and they…
The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network published an analysis and an alert to financial institutions to be vigilant to digital asset investment scams and detailed the massive scope. Digital asset investment scams fall into a few categories of fraud operations such as “pig butchering,” “romance baiting,” or “cryptocurrency confidence schemes.” The fraudsters use fake personas…
The Securities and Exchange Commission issued a proposal to rescind its “pay-to-play” rule that prohibits investment advisers from making certain political contributions. “The Commission has determined that the political contribution rule, since its adoption in 2010, has led to significant unintended consequences, such as prohibitions by some advisers on political contributions at the state and…
The charges against Mark D. Hanf and Hoai-Nam Chu Phan at the California-based Pacific Private Money Group LLC looked liked a fairly regular investment scheme gone bad, turned into a Ponzi-scheme. They raised capital with the intent of making real estate loans. They got hit by the rise in interest rates in 2022 and became…
The Securities and Exchange Commission charged 38 firms with filing material misrepresentations in their Forms ADV. The SEC alleges that the goal was to falsely portray themselves as legitimate advisory firms to U.S. investors. There were a similar half-dozen of these cases at the end of 2025. In the Bluesky Case, the SEC went to…
The Securities and Exchange Commission is continuing its quest to bend over backwards to get crypto assets to the masses. Paul Atkin’s run SEC has sent a new custody rule to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, part of the Office of Management and Budget, for review before publication. The proposed rule would “improve…