Doug Cornelius on compliance for private equity real estate
The other half of the Securities and Exchange Commission budget request for 2027 is a report on its performance in fiscal year 2025. How did the SEC perform in enforcement actions? The SEC was off its game. The 85% metric was the lowest in years. I believe this number might dip some more with the…
I wrote last week how the Securities and Exchange Commission had 18% of its staff depart in fiscal year 2025 thanks to the DOGE efforts to reduce the size of the federal workforce. For Fiscal Year 2027, the SEC is proposing to reduce its budget by another 11%. However, the SEC is proposing to add…
This is press release that would not have been written by judge Margaret Ryan if she was still serving as the Director of Enforcement. She only lasted six months with the rapid down-sizing and lack of enforcement at the Securities and Exchange Commission. I was stunned to see the SEC attack its prior stewardship in…
As retail access to private markets accelerates, the Securities and Exchange Commission hosted a roundtable on Wednesday to discuss governance, valuation, and other considerations in the private markets. The SEC has a clear aim of promoting “retailization” of private markets. My skepticism of this direction is not one of risk and valuation but of liquidity….
A major goal of a chief compliance officer at a registered investment adviser is to avoid have to face the Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement staff. I’ve never spent much time reading its enforcement manual. It’s been updated. The last update was in 2017. There are updates to the Wells process when one becomes the…
The Small Business Advocate Act of 2016 established the Office of the Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation within the Securities and Exchange Commission. That Act requires an annual report of statistical information and substantive analysis. That annual report was recently released. Perhaps a bit late because Stacey Bowers, who served as the Advocate throughout…
The Securities and Exchange Commission is proposing some definitional changes to ease its regulatory flexibility. I didn’t think much of this, putting it into the compliance arcana bucket. That is, until I took a brief look at the changes on the Fact Sheet. The SEC is proposing to increase the definition of a “small” investment…
As 2026 begins, the two biggest investment management regulators are short on staff and leadership. The DOGE purge has left each agency with 10%-15% fewer numbers in headcount. President Trump has also left commission seats on each vacant. The sole remaining Democratic commissioner at the SEC, Caroline Crenshaw, left when her her term ended on…
After 43 days of being forced out of the office, the Securities and Exchange Commission has re-engaged its motor and is taking action. I found something in my inbox this morning that I haven’t seen for those 43 days: an administrative order from the SEC. In the scope of things it’s fairly minor. RespireRx Pharmaceuticals…
It should come as no surprise that the current Securities and Exchange Commission under Chair Atkins would retreat from the rule-making of the SEC under Chair Gensler. We’ve seen it with the rapid retreat on crypto. Last week the SEC formally withdrew 14 proposed rule-makings. Happy to see the Safeguarding Advisory Client Assets proposal go…