Compliance Bricks and Mortar – Page 17

Compliance Bricks and Mortar for November 20

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

Attributes of a Great Ethics and Compliance Leader by Jean-Marc Levy in Corporate Compliance Insights

The three most important qualities of a CECO are courage, a deep understanding of his/her business and emotional intelligence. These qualities go beyond the traditional role of an in-house lawyer at most organizations. As a CECO, spending time with as many leaders of other functions as possible can help hone these skills and support their usage.[More…]

Want to Avoid “General Solicitation?” Focus on Relationships! by William Carleton in Counselor @ Law

The theme of the new SEC guidance is this: a “pre-existing, substantive relationship” can be a terrific antidote to the virus⁴ of “general solicitation.”

Now, the concept of the pre-existing, substantive business relationship has been around for a long time. It’s been a way of demonstrating that a given deal is indeed private, and prior guidance from the SEC has long held that an issuer can extend the utility of the concept by including, not only persons the issuer knows, but also the relationships of a broker dealer participating in a given offering. [More…]

SEC’s Piwowar Takes Another Shot at ‘Flawed’ Enforcement Statistics by Bruce Carton in Compliance Week

In his remarks this week at the 34th Annual Current Financial Reporting Issues Conference, SEC Commissioner Michael S. Piwowar took another wisecrack at the way the SEC measures the effectiveness of its enforcement efforts. Speaking to an audience of primarily non-lawyers who prepare financial statements, Piwowar asked them to

imagine a world where GAAP or other reporting standards did not exist – where management could develop its own numbers based on its own poorly-defined criteria. Management might be tempted to create numbers that provide the illusion of performance but in reality are largely irrelevant to measuring the actual performance of that organization. Reported numbers might be distributed for public consumption without clear disclosure as to how they were derived.

[More…]

Whistleblower Tips Rise Again in 2015 by Christopher M. Varano in Securities Compliance Sentinel

The Securities and Exchange Commission released its 2015 Annual Report on its Whistleblower Program this week and announced another rise in the number of whistleblower tips that it received. The SEC reported receiving 3,923 tips during its 2015 Fiscal Year, which is up from 3,620 in 2014 (as we previously reported), and up over 30% from 2012, which was the first full year that these numbers were reported. Additionally, in its FY 2015, the SEC paid out $37 million to whistleblowers, which included a whopping reward of over $30 million to just one whistleblower. The SEC’s Office of the Whistleblower (OWB) rewards whistleblowers for “their provision of original information that led to a successful Commission enforcement action with monetary sanctions totaling over $1 million” and can net tipsters between 10% and 30%, which is the statutory maximum allowed under the Dodd-Frank Act.[More…]

Compliance Bricks and Mortar for November 13

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

Compliance Officers Think Regulators Are Targeting Them By Samuel Rubenfeld in the Wall Street Journal’s Risk & Compliance Journal

Thomson Reuters, for its Personal Liability Report, found that 93% of compliance professionals expect their personal liability to increase over the next year, with 64% of them expecting a “significant” increase. Half of the respondents believe senior managers don’t really know what’s going on in their businesses. And yet, nearly two-thirds of the 2,000 risk and compliance professionals surveyed by Thomson Reuters also expect the regulatory focus on holding senior managers accountable to extend internationally. [More…]

Volcker’s Covered Fund Rules: When Banking Law Borrows from a Securities Law Statute by Erik F. Gerding in the CLS Blue Sky Blog

In a recent short article just published in The Capital Markets Law Journal (an earlier ssrn draft is available here), I examine this decision by Congress and federal regulators. In crafting the statutory provision and the final rule respectively, Congress and federal regulators chose to apply the covered funds rule to bank investments in entities that would otherwise be investment companies but for the exemptions in Sections 3(c)(1) and 3(c)(7) of the Investment Company Act. This importation from the Investment Company Act – in what I call a trans-statutory cross reference – has profound consequences. [More…]

U.S. Justice Dept Borrows From Academics for Policy Shift by Stephen Dockery in the Wall Street Journal’s Risk & Compliance Journal

The U.S. Justice Department is considering a new policy that gives companies a clearer idea of what to expect when self-reporting foreign corruption violations to the government, a move strikingly similar to a corporate-minded approach to criminal liability advocated by law professor Jennifer Arlen at New York University. [More…]

Still think fantasy sports isn’t gambling? Don’t bet on it by Phil Mushnick in the New York Post

They’re sold as get-rich-quick, no-downside methods to win thousands, tens of thousands, millions, the come-ons geared toward mostly young, impressionable (vulnerable) men stoked by the promise of winning more treasure than they can stuff in a 1996 Civic. [More…]

Marc Wyatt Named Director of the Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations

Mr. Wyatt previously was OCIE’s Deputy Director and has been the office’s Acting Director since April 2015, following the departure of former director Andrew Bowden.

Mr. Wyatt joined the SEC in December 2012 as a senior specialized examiner focused on examinations of advisers to hedge funds and private equity funds. He was named Deputy Director in October 2014 and in that position he led OCIE’s Technology Controls Program and served as a member of the office’s Operating and Executive Committees. He also was the national co-coordinator of OCIE’s Private Fund Specialized Working Group and participated in the creation of its Private Fund Examination Unit, whose attorneys, accountants, and examiners specialize in examinations of advisers to private funds.

Compliance Bricks and Mortar for November 6

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

Decay: Aged brick & mortar in Puerto Rico by Rusty Long

Definition of Materiality Depends Who You Ask by Emily Chasan in the Wall Street Journal

As CFO Journal reported on Tuesday, at least half a dozen standard setters, including the accounting rule makers, Securities and Exchange Commission and stock exchanges, have some guidelines on what information must be told to investors and when. Companies want to take a fresh look at “what disclosures are effective and necessary, and what might be obsolete,” said Tom Quaadman, vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness.

Companies are increasingly worried that so many different interpretations of materiality are part of the problem, he said.

Here are some of the definitions of materiality from five different regulators: [More…]

Compliance officers are executives and subject matter experts by Michael Scher in The FCPA BLog

Under Compliance 2.0, compliance officers aren’t in-house lawyers. They are not auditors, or human resource people, or project managers, or part of general risk management.

They are the leadership for, and subject matter experts on, all of the elements that make up the company’s compliance program. [More…]

Morrison & Foerster reports SEC Settles Charges that Investment Adviser Failed to Adequately Disclose Changes in Investment Strategy by Kelley A. Howes in the CLS Blue Sky Blog

According to the SEC, the fund originally invested in distressed debt, but in 2008, it began investing a significant portion of the fund’s assets in credit default swaps (CDS). Prior to 2008, the market value of the CDS portfolio never exceeded 2.6% of the fund’s net assets. The SEC found that by the end of the first quarter of 2009, however, the fund’s CDS portfolio grew to 25% of net assets. [More…]

J.P. Morgan Adviser Admits Stealing $22 Million From Clients by Anna Prior in the Wall Street Journal

According to federal prosecutors, Mr. Oppenheim defrauded multiple clients over a seven-year period. He claimed to have invested their money in low-risk municipal bonds and sent doctored account statements purportedly showing profits earned on those investments. However, he was using the clients’ money for his own personal benefit—including to pay for a home loan, bills and, according to his lawyer, gambling—and to pay back other investors. [More…]

Do You Speak Fluent Private Equity? Take the Quiz!

The private equity industry, like every other major industry, has plenty of jargon and industry-specific terminology. How well do you know the jargon and terminology of private equity?

Privcap Academy presents a fun challenge – take this quiz to test your command you have of the language of private equity.
[Take the Quiz!]

Compliance Bricks and Mortar for October 30

These are some of the compliance-related stories that caught my attention while getting ready for Halloween!

Halloween background with pumpkins, frame, no gradients

The Results Are In – SCCE’s 2015 Salary Survey Report Is Now Available by Adam Turteltaub in SCCE’s Compliance & Ethics Blog

The Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics (SCCE)® is pleased to be able to provide you with the 2015 Compliance and Ethics Officer Salary Survey report. As you will see, we have included data on compensation for both the chief compliance and ethics officer as well as for the compliance staff, giving a fuller picture of the compliance profession in one document. [More…]

California’s Secured Promissory Note Exemption by Keith Paul Bishop in California Corporate & Securities Law

The line between real property transactions and securities transactions is not always clear. California Corporations Code Section 25100(p) provides an exemption for a promissory note secured by a lien on real property provided it is neither: (a) one of a series of notes of equal priority secured by interests in the same real property; or (b) a note in which beneficial interests are sold to more than one person or entity. However, the fact that a secured note may be exempt under Section 25100(p) will only take you so far.[More…]

“Behavioral compliance”: the will and the way by Jeff Kaplan in Conflict of Interest Blog

“Behavioral ethics” information and ideas have, to date, been used far more to identify ethical challenges than to design approaches to address such challenges. In “Behavioral Ethics, Behavioral Compliance” (which can be downloaded for free here ) Professor Donald C. Langevoort of the Georgetown University Law Center takes up this latter task, and provides a number of practical suggestions for compliance-and-ethics (“C&E”) professionals to consider in applying this body of knowledge to their day-to-day work. [More…]

Are compliance officers crazy? by Richard L. Cassin in The FCPA Blog

So is it crazy to be a compliance officer?

Albert Einstein said insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Expectations, then, are the key. With the verdict of history in mind, it’s crazy for a compliance officer to expect to bat a thousand against graft. Or to look for constant salutes from the C-suite. Or to think of all prosecutors, regulators, judges, and politicians as natural allies.[More…]

Whom Should You Suspend During an Internal Investigation? by Thomas Fox in FCPA Compliance & Ethics

Whom to suspend during any Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) investigation is always a delicate question to answer. Unfortunately there is never an easy answer. As the Volkswagen (VW) emission-testing scandal continues to reverberate, it continues to bring up some very knotty questions, which have bedeviled the Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) or compliance practitioner in many areas. Today there is an example around internal investigations.[More…]

What qualities should a CCO have; here are nine. by Joshua Horn in Securities Compliance Sentinel

Andrew Donohue, SEC Chief of Staff, recently commented on what a person needs in order to be a competent CCO; he identified nine things. The overarching theme from this list is experience. According to Donahue, in no particular order, a CCO must:

Have a “first hand knowledge” of the regulatory environment.

Have a detailed understanding of the firm, its operations and structure.

Be able to readily identify conflicts of interest, report and resolve them.

Have an understanding of the firm’s business model, including knowledge of firm available products and their profitability.

[More…]

Compliance Bricks and Mortar for October 23

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

Two Games about Gifts for Corporate Compliance & Ethics Week by Ricardo Pellafone in SCCE’s The Compliance & Ethics Blog

You know that your employees are competitive, so you know that a game show is more engaging than a Powerpoint lecture.

But you’ve also got other stuff to do, so spending the time to put together the mechanics and questions for a new game show isn’t going to happen.

And so you end up playing Jeopardy. Again.

Well, not this time. As we head into Corporate Compliance & Ethics Week—and towards the holiday season—here are two ideas for in-person game shows that will help your employees build their judgment on gifts and entertainment. [More…]

Inside Swiss Banks’ Tax-Cheating Machinery by Laura Saunders in the Wall Street Journal

Dozens of Swiss banks have been spilling their secrets this year as to how they encouraged U.S. clients to hide money abroad, part of a Justice Department program that lets them avoid prosecution. It is part of a broader U.S. crackdown on undeclared offshore accounts that has ensnared big Swiss banks such as UBS Group AG, but has received scant attention because it mostly involves little-known firms and relatively small fines. [More….]

DOL supports ESG fund use in 401(k) plans by Greg Iacurci in InvestmentNews

Fiduciaries had been wary of introducing ESG investments — also known by such names as economically targeted, and sustainable, responsible and impact (SRI) investing — to retirement plans due to previous guidance from the department, according to Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez. A 2008 rule said fund consideration based on factors other than risk and return, such as ESG, should be rare, which set a higher but unclear standard of fiduciary compliance, the DOL said.

That guidance “gave cooties” to impact investing and had a “chilling effect” on its use in plans governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, said Mr. Perez, speaking Thursday in New York.

According to the new guidance — Interpretive Bulletin 2015-01, which is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on Oct. 26 — “fiduciaries need not treat commercially reasonable investments as inherently suspect or in need of special scrutiny merely because they take into consideration environmental, social or other such factors.” [More…]

Yates and Outsourcing Government Investigations by Michael Volkov in Corruption, Crime & Compliance

With the dramatic sea-change from the Yates memorandum, I predict (and fully expect) individuals who end up being prosecuted (civilly or criminally) to challenge more aspects of the corporate internal investigation. As companies conduct internal investigations under the “supervision and direction” of DOJ prosecutors, defendants will seek access to internal investigation documents, notes, and seek to portray outside counsel as agents of DOJ prosecutors.

I recognize that this will be a real stretch but I expect there to be more litigation in this area, under which defendants will claim they need access to such materials in order to adequately defend themselves. [More…]

SEC Faces New Attack on In-House Judges by Jean Eagleshem in the Wall Street Journal

Legislation to give defendants the right to opt out of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s in-house court is expected to be introduced in Congress on Thursday, ramping up pressure on the agency to further reform its controversial tribunal. [More…]

Compliance Bricks and Mortar for October 16

I have been busy and not been able to post any of my own stories this week. Here are some other compliance-related stories that recently caught my attention.

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The Right Wing’s Assault on the Post Office – Smashing the Myth That It’s in Financial Trouble by Yves Smith in Naked Capitalism

That year, the Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 (PAEA). Under the terms of PAEA, the USPS was forced to “prefund its future health care benefit payments to retirees for the next 75 years in an astonishing ten-year time span” – meaning that it had to put aside billions of dollars to pay for the health benefits of employees it hasn’t even hired yet, something that “no other government or private corporation is required to do.”The problem with the Post‘s argument starts in its thesis: that the post office is in some sort of deep fiscal hole of its own making – a result of being left behind in the Internet Age and a shrinking consumer base. The truth is that almost all of the postal service’s losses can be traced back to a single change in the law made by the Republican Congress in 2006. [More…]

Compliance at the Tipping Point, Part V – Protection Afforded From a Compliance Program by Tom Fox in the FCPA Compliance Report

Finally, is the last tipping point the Schrems decision from the European Court of Justice (ECJ), which invalidated the Safe Harbor provision through which American companies brought information developed through hotlines and internal information back to the US? The decision is much more far-reaching than simply the FCPA. For instance, Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) mandates that a company have a hotline. But similarly to the response to the whistleblower provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act, companies must now be in a stronger position to quickly and accurately assess any potential violations that might be detected, reported or arise. This means not only thoroughly training your compliance function but it also puts more pressure on the underlying internal controls to give the compliance function the underlying information, on a more real-time basis about high-FCPA risk issues. Further, if you tie the Schrems decision together with the Yates Memo which requires a company to turn over information on individuals in very short order, to receive any credit from the DOJ, you see the need for a more robust prevention system in addition to other sources of information. [More…]

Sports Organizations Need Effective Integrity and Compliance Programs by David Dodge in SCCE’s The Compliance & Ethics Blog

Scandals have become as much a part of sports as players, officials, and spectators and surely it won’t be long before today’s outrage is replaced by fresh indignation over some other antics, be they on-field or after hours. Ben Franklin once noted, “It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation and only one bad one to lose it.”

Well-designed, effective integrity and compliance programs eliminate the embarrassments that roil sports every season. Well-structured programs that have the support of top leaders in the organization would be a huge first step towards making it clear that ethical behavior is expected and there will be consequences for transgressors.[More….]

Compliance Officers Call for SEC Enforcement Guidelines by Randi Val Morrison in the CorporateCounsel.net

On the heels of recent SEC enforcement actions against Chief Compliance Officers (CCO) and associated statements by Commissioners Gallagher and Aguilar and Chair White, the National Society of Compliance Professionals, a financial services industry trade group for compliance officers, sent this letter to SEC Director of Enforcement Andrew Ceresney requesting that the Commission establish policy that permits initiation of enforcement proceedings against CCOs only if they acted intentionally or recklessly – not negligently – to facilitate the underlying primary securities law violation.

Compliance Bricks and Mortar for October 9

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

The Unsophisticated Sophisticated: Old Age and the Accredited Investors Definition by Tao Guo, Michael S. Finke and Chris Browning in the CLS Blue Sky Blog

Using two large nationally-representative data sets that include financial literacy tests, we find that financial literacy scores decline in old age consistently among both accredited and non-accredited investors in both data sets. Average scores for accredited investors age 80 and older are significantly lower (45.7% in one data set and 57.1% in the other) than average scores for respondents age 60-64 (60.4% and 63.8%) who do not meet the accredited investor income and wealth thresholds. [More…]

DOJ Says Pursuing ‘Higher-Impact’ Bribery Cases by Stephen Dockery in the Wall Street Journal

Spokesman Peter Carr said after years of handling smaller cases coming from corporate self-reporting, the unit is now putting more at stake and going after blockbuster cases. Initiatives to boost foreign corruption enforcement personnel and resources are being used to go after that high-profile wrongdoing, Mr. Carr said. Many of those programs began years ago.

His comments came in response to news that the Department’s anti-bribery efforts were eclipsed by the Securities and Exchange Commission in the third quarter. [More…]

The Psychology of Cheating and FCPA Compliance by Thomas Fox in the FCPA Compliance Report

In the movie Margin Call, Jeremy Irons intones that there are three ways to win in business: (1) be the smartest; (2) be the fastest; and (3) cheat. I am currently out at the SCCE 2015 Compliance and Ethics Institute and as you might guess the Volkswagen (VW) emissions-testing scandal is a major topic of conversation. One of the more interesting observations is that the VW scandal was not a failure of compliance but an intentional design to cheat emissions standards testing on a worldwide basis. [More…]

The image is from the Apollo 17 Archive on FLickr

Compliance Bricks and Mortar for October 2

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

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The Curious Incident of the ‘Life Coach’ and the Press Release by Bruce Carton in Compliance Week

As I’ve observed before, the SEC loves to craft press release headlines that feature defendants’ interesting or high-profile jobs. For example, past SEC headline highlights include:

“Commission Settles with Motivational Speaker“

“SEC Charges Nationally Known Psychic in Multi-Million Dollar Securities Fraud“

“SEC Charges Former Professional Baseball Player Doug DeCinces and Three Others with Insider Trading“

“SEC Charges College Football Hall of Fame Coach in $80 Million Ponzi Scheme“

All of this makes it quite mystifying to me how the SEC’s case filed last week…[More]

Where I Think the Yates DOJ Memo Will Take Us by Roy Snell in SCCE’s Compliance & Ethics Blog

On one side of the room will be top leadership; on the other, the lead investigators. The DOJ may ask that the Board Chair be involved. At some point during the meeting, the DOJ will share their recent memo/policy that, paraphrased, states, “If you turn over internal investigations of individuals involved in the alleged wrongdoing, you will get more credit.” (“More credit” is a euphemism for, in some cases, millions of dollars in reduced penalties.) But beyond the discussion of credit, leadership will need to be prepared for a discussion of discipline.[More…]

Reflections on the Hitachi FCPA Enforcement Action by Thomas R. Fox in FCPA Compliance & Ethics

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Hitachi matter is that it involved bribery of a political party, the African National Congress (ANC). The SEC Press Release stated, “Hitachi sold a 25-percent stake in a South African subsidiary to a company serving as a front for the ANC. This arrangement gave the front company and the ANC the ability to share in the profits from any power station contracts that Hitachi secured. Hitachi was ultimately awarded two contracts to build power stations in South Africa and paid the ANC’s front company approximately $5 million in “dividends” based on profits derived from the contracts. Through a separate, undisclosed arrangement, Hitachi paid the front company an additional $1 million in “success fee”.”[More…]

The Volcker Rule as Structural Law by John C. Coates in the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation

Alongside these banking laws, another set of structural laws grew in importance in the 20th century: administrative law—the body of statutes and court doctrines channeling and controlling the use of delegated law-making power by government officials and agencies. To control and improve the functioning of agencies, Congress adopted a number of legal constraints, including the Administrative Procedures Act, which together with an assertive judiciary gives private actors the ability to challenge regulation in court. To this list, cost-benefit analysis (CBA) has been increasingly advanced—in advocacy, in Congress, and in court—as an additional tool for improving financial regulations, and holding financial regulatory agencies accountable to the public. [More…]

The Compliance Dangers of Cheerleaders and Nay-Sayers by Michael Volkov in Corruption, Crime & Compliance

Many senior executives are smart people –we all understand that. But too often senor executives embrace an interpersonal style of cheerleading. It allows them to appear to be on the “team” and prevent them from “rocking the boat.” Unfortunately, such an attitude prevents them from being a value add and problem solver for real management issues. [More…]

Compliance Bricks and Mortar for September 18

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

bricks freedon trail

A Hill To Die On By Donna Boehme in SCCE’s Compliance & Ethics Blog

Of the thousands of decisions that must be made in the course of designing and implementing a meaningful compliance program to cover all of an organization’s top risks, what really matters? This is the judgment that successful CCOs develop over time through experience and observation, and working with their mentors and thought circles. It’s as if Fisher and Ury wrote a special CCO edition of their great business book “Getting to Yes,” filled with examples from our field. Now THAT would be a book worth having on every CCO’s bookshelf! Or how about 7 Habits of Highly Effective CCO’s? As the dear departed Dr. Stephen Covey would say “Begin with the end in mind!”

Corporations, the Constitution, and the Rights of Others by Thomas Joo in the CLS Blue Sky Blog

Unfortunately, denying corporate constitutional rights is unlikely to have much effect. Insofar as the Supreme Court has protected corporations under the Constitution, that protection does not expressly rely on the notion that a corporation per se has constitutional rights. To the contrary, a central strategy of the Court’s corporate constitutional jurisprudence has been to avoid deciding whether corporations are the holders of constitutional rights. Constitutional decisions protecting corporations have not been based on the rights of corporate “persons,” but on the less controversial rights of human persons. That is, “corporate” constitutional rights are actually based on the rights of others. [More…]

Mark Cuban Joins Increasing Clamor Against SEC Administrative Proceedings by Amanda Maine, J.D. in Jim Hamilton’s World of Securities Regulation

Businessman Mark Cuban, calling himself a “first-hand witness to and victim of SEC overreach,” has filed an amicus brief in the Eleventh Circuit urging it uphold an injunction of an SEC administrative proceeding against Charles H. Hill, Jr. Cuban drew on his own experience during the SEC’s unsuccessful insider trading action against him to argue that the use of administrative law judges in complex litigation such as insider trading cases is unfair and against the public interest (Hill v. SEC, September 15, 2015). [More…]

Parking Meter Expired. Or Maybe Not by Adam Turteltaub in SCCE’s Compliance & Ethics Blog

All of this is yet another example of why incentives need to be treated as a risk area. When people are offered a reward for hitting a goal, they are more likely to try their best to achieve it. For some, that will mean cutting corners, bending rules, or just plain cheating. [More…]

Compliance Bricks and Mortar for September 11

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

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What Does Aristotle Have to do With Business Ethics? by Ben Dipietro in the WSJ’s Risk & Compliance Journal

History can show us the consequences of unethical behavior, the disasters that have resulted from unethical behavior. But it’s not just a mirror reflecting bad behavior, it’s also a guide book to proper conduct and to articulate and define what an ethical life is. It makes business people human and humane, as well as profitable. Ethics are not the adversary of profit; there’s a right way of making money and a wrong way. [The right way] is fairly, honestly. A free market requires mutual consent, contract law and transparency. Without good faith and honesty, you cannot have a free market. [More..]

Private fund Performance After the Dodd-Frank Act – Evidence from 2010 to 2015 by Wulf Kaal in the CLS Blue Sky Blog

Our findings support the private fund industry’s claims that increased supervision and disclosure mandated in the Dodd-Frank Act have a negative effect on private fund earnings. A discontinuity exists at the threshold value of $150 million AUM, above which private fund adviser registration under the Dodd-Frank Act becomes mandatory. While the relevant estimates are not significant and the discontinuity is not persistent and dissipates in the subsequent months after the registration effective date for private fund advisers, our results do support the private fund industry’s claims that increased supervision and disclosure via the Dodd-Frank Act affects its profitability. [More…]

Rule 506(c): Updated Stats by Broc Romanek in TheCorporateCounsel.net

Since the exemption became available in September 2013, Form D filing data indicates that as of June 30, 2015:

– Filers checked that they intended to rely on Rule 506(c) in almost 2,900 new offerings, and planned to raise more than $37 billion in new capital and
– Filers checked that they intended to rely on Rule 506(b) in approximately 34,800 new offerings, and planned to raise more than $1.15 trillion in new capital.