Doug Cornelius on compliance for private equity real estate
Compliance Building is on assignment to Bermuda this week. Downtown Hamilton is full of post office box company headquarters, rental corporate directors, and offshore transactions. However, I’m heading out into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean for rest and relaxation, not compliance research.
A new post will appear after I finish dusting the pink sand off.
The September 11 attacks resulted in the deaths of 2,996 people, including the 19 hijackers and 2,977 victims. The victims included 246 on the four planes, 2,606 in New York City in the World Trade Center towers and on the ground, and 125 at the Pentagon. Nearly all of the victims were civilians. 55 military personnel were among those killed at the Pentagon. One was an employee of my company.
Make a few minutes today to remember those lost directly, and as a result of the subsequent actions. Thousands more Americans were killed in Afghanistan to attack the perpetrators of this criminal act.
Make a few more minutes to think about how our country has eroded some of it’s citizens’ civil liberties as a response to the threats, real or perceived, that may come. The NSA spying scandal, the TSA procedures at the airport, the militarization of our police forces, any many other negatives have spilled into America culture as a result of those September 11 attacks.
The phrase “dog days” refers to the sultry days of summer, the months of July and August in the Norther Hemisphere. The Romans referred to the dog days as diēs caniculārēs. The Dog Days were the days when the star Sirius rose just before or at the same time as sunrise. They considered Sirius to be the “Dog Star” because it is the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major (Large Dog).
Like many things Roman, the term “Dog Days” was adopted from its earlier use by the Greeks. It may even be traced back to the ancient Egyptian astronomer-priests who noted that Sirius rose with the Sun just prior to the annual flooding of the Nile.
The lazy days of summer can be great days to sit back and relax with a cold glass of iced teas to cool you down. With fewer people in the office, you may have some free time to catch up on lagging projects. or you may have some free time to spend out of the office.
For me it’s a bit of both. But currently, I’m looking forward to some vacation days coming up. That means things will likely be quiet on Compliance Building until September.
The ABA Journal is working on their annual Blawg 100 list. They think it’s a good idea to smash law blog into blawg.
Visit the Blawg 100 Amici nomination page and fill in a few boxes. Due date is August 9.
The reason for this story is whether to put Compliance Building forward as a nominee.
Since this is a compliance blog, I of course turn to the rules first:
[P]lease keep these criteria in mind when submitting Blawg 100 amici:
1. We’re primarily interested in blogs in which the author is recognizable as someone working in a legal field or studying law in the vast majority of his or her posts.
2. The blog should be written with an audience of legal professionals or law students in mind.
3. The majority of the blog’s content should be unique to the blog and not cross-posted or cut and pasted from other publications.
4. We are not interested in blogs that more or less exist to promote the author’s products and services.
Let’s start from the bottom. Compliance Building is not a promotional platform. I have no products or services to sell.
Number 3 is not a problem. The content of Compliance Building is unique. It may not be interesting all of the time. It may not appeal to a broad audience. But it’s not just cut and paste from other publications.
Number 2 is a where there is a disconnect. I’m a lawyer, but not all compliance professionals are lawyers. A large portion of the stories include some legal analysis and discussion. The main purpose of Compliance Building is to keep track of all of the things I need to know to be a compliance professional in the real estate private equity industry. That includes lots of statutes and regulations. That includes the learning from enforcement actions brought by the SEC and other regulators. But it also includes non-legal analysis and the business side of compliance.
Number 1 is a similar problem. Am I working in the legal field? A large portion of my current writing is focused on the new and changing legal requirements that have been imposed on real estate private equity fund managers. One of the big challenges is keeping up to date on the regulatory changes. I use Compliance Building to help me keep up to date with those changes. Hopefully, it also helps keep you up to date.
If Compliance Building is useful to you and you think it meets the criteria, then feel free to nominate it. Visit the Blawg 100 Amici nomination page and fill in a fewboxes. Due date is August 9.
I’m working on nominations for a few of my favorite law blogs.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
I’m focused on the “pursuit of happiness” clause and taking a few days off.
Canada Day is the national day of Canada celebrating the anniversary of the July 1, 1867, enactment of the British North America Act, 1867 which united three colonies into a single country called Canada within the British Empire.
Last week was a difficult week to be away from Boston on vacation. My family is usually out on Patriot’s Day Monday watching the Boston Marathon. We wander down our street and mingle with the other spectators, friends, and neighbors on Commonwealth Avenue at the start of the Newton hills.
Instead we spent the week in Charleston and Washington hearing about the events through the news, Facebook and Twitter. Some it was informative, and some was misinformed.
On sunny post-vacation Monday morning, everything feels the same in a city that felt such tragedy a week ago. That’s good.
I’m sure there are compliance angles about the story. You have to wonder what made the brothers go bad. You have to be concerned about investigation process. You have to be concerned about the abrogation of rights.
But today is really about getting back to normal.
I’m watching the horror while on vacation instead of my office in Boston.
My heart goes out to all of the spectators and families who were affected by the blast. Patriot’s Day in Boston is usually a great day, starting with the Revolutionary War reenactments in the morning, a Red Sox home game, and the endurance of the marathon.
I’m also heartbroken by the runners who put in months of training, but were stopped short of the finish line. That finish line is a demarcation of salvation after making it the 26.2 miles from Hopkinton and up Heartbreak Hill. It should never be a crime scene.
Yet another heavy snowfall in Greater Boston. I spent my time this morning shoveling, instead of writing a new blog post.
At first I thought Transportation Security Administration had gone completely insane. The blue shirts are now going to allow knives on planes as long as the blade is shorter than six centimeters and narrower than 1/2 inch. After looking closer I just think they merely incompetent.
Up front I should mention that I have never thought that post 9/11 airport security made me feel any safer flying. And if you balance the costs and aggravation to travelers against the small reduction in possible in-flight incidents, the TSA is completely out of control.
From a compliance perspective, the changes in the banned list make my head hurt.
Water, gels, and liquids in a container of more than 3 ounces are still dangerous. But actual knives are not.
Looking closer at the rules, the permitted knives are a very small subset of knives. The blades can’t be fixed or locked. That limits it to novelty knives. (I lost one of those to LaGuardia’s TSA line a few years ago with an old client’s logo on it.) The news releases and media report have largely failed to emphasize the continuing prohibition of locking blades. They should look closer at the image above.
I scratch my head over the use of centimeters for length and inches for width on limiting novelty knives. I guess the TSA wanted to use both sides of the ruler. Someday, the United States will join the rest of the world and embrace the metric system.
I suspect that TSA officials are big hockey fans because hockey sticks are now allowed on board. However, baseball bats are still banned, unless they are novelty size. You can also bring golf clubs, ski poles and lacrosse sticks on board. Clearly, TSA officials are not baseball fans.
But that bottle of water is still more of a threat on board than a hockey stick.
Raise your hand if you think any of these rule changes are going to (1) make you feel safer flying, or (2) will result in less confusion in the long airport TSA lines? ……. No. I didn’t think so. That sounds like a policy failure, with the changes in policy failing to meet either of its main goals.
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