Doug Cornelius on compliance for private equity real estate
Air travel has gotten has gotten less pleasant over the years. The TSA makes it unpleasant to get to the plane. Then the plane themselves have reduced passenger room. United took the unpleasantness to an even lower level when it forcibly removed a passenger from an overbooked flight. “Flight 3411 from Chicago to Louisville was … Read more »
The sculpture, titled “The Fearless Girl,” was made by Kristen Visbal and photographed by Federica Valabrega. State Street Global Advisors conspired in the middle of the night to drop a statue in Bowling Green Park of a girl facing off against the famous Wall Street Charging Bull. It’s part of a campaign by SSGA to … Read more »
John Glenn passed away at the end of 2016. He was a Senator, an astronaut, and distinguished pilot in the World War II and the Korean War. The picture below struck me as one of ultimate cool. Mr. Glenn had just finished orbiting the Earth on February 20, 1962. Doing so in a tin can … Read more »
Dodd-Frank made the Securities and Exchange Commission create a rule on the disclosure of payments by resource extraction issuers. The SEC finally got the rule out this fall. Now Congress is threatening to abolish the rule. Section 1504 of the Dodd-Frank Act directed the Securities and Exchange Commission to “issue final rules that require each … Read more »
Last week, the Trump Organization kicked off its compliance program by making two appointments. Bobby Burchfield will be independent ethics adviser. He’ll be responsible for signing off on transactions that could raise ethics or conflicts of interest concerns. George Sorial will become chief compliance counsel. In the January 11 press conference, Sheri Dillon announced: [T]o … Read more »
Conflict disclosure and management of the conflicts are central to the Investment Advisers Act. Clients are supposed to come first. That means that conflicts must be disclosed and steps taken to manage the conflict must be put in place. An affiliated service provider is a common conflict. Centre Partners Management used a service provider for … Read more »
Susan Diamond was Chief Compliance Officer of Saddle River Advisors. Now, Ms. Diamond is out of pocket for a $15,000 penalty and is subject to a nine-month suspension from being associated with any investment adviser or other financial services firms. After the suspension, she will be prohibited from acting in the securities industry in certain managerial … Read more »
President Trump has come into office as the first president in modern era to own an active business empire. One in which his name is the probably the most valuable asset. Like him or not; voted for him or not; He is the President. As we have seen in the past, scandals limit the ability … Read more »
In case you were not clear that the Securities and Exchange Commission is serious about enforcing Rule 21F-17, BlackRock is the latest to run the perp walk. The SEC accused the money management giant of improperly using separation agreements that forced employees to waive their ability to obtain whistleblower awards. The SEC adopted Rule 21F-17, which provides in … Read more »
One of the rallying cries for President-elect Trump was to drain the swamp of corruption. Compliance professionals could think of many things that could happen to remove conflicts or the appearance of conflicts. Personally, as a compliance professional and a voter, I was disappointed to learn that Hillary Clinton did a poor job of walling … Read more »