Robert Kaiser was granted rare access to the action behind the scenes of the creation of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Act of Congress is an enjoyable study of the enactment of that law, used as tool to explore how Congress works, and largely how it it doesn’t work. Kaiser was already an … Read more »
Red Flags for Insider Trading
Badin Rungruangnavarat was very lucky. He invested a bunch of cash from May 21 to May 28. When the market closed on May 29 he had unrealized gains of over $3 million and had achieved a return in excess of 3000%. Now he is unlucky because the Securities and Exchange Commission froze his investment gain … Read more »
Compliance Bricks and Mortar for June 7
These are some of the compliance-related stories that recently caught my attention. Madoff: Don’t let Wall Street scam you, like I did By Sital S. Patel in MarketWatch After all those years of racing to remain a step ahead of the authorities, Madoff has a few ideas about how the market can be made more … Read more »
Money Market Fund Changes Proposed
On Wednesday, the Securities and Exchange Commission proposed several reforms to money market funds. Changes to money market funds has been in the works since 2008 after the Reserve Primary Fund “broke the buck” at the height of the financial crisis. The SEC published two proposals. Under the first alternative, prime institutional money market funds … Read more »
A Manual of Style for Compliance
I’ve seen some poorly drafted compliance policies. The source of the problem is usually that they were written by lawyers, for lawyers. That is good when it comes to defending your firm against a lawsuit. But it’s a bad thing if the policy does not clearly tell the employees what they can do and what … Read more »
Doesn’t Matter if Real Estate is a Security if You Lie to the Feds
I continue to look at the margins where real estate and securities meet, so any case brought by the SEC against an real estate firm catches my eye. The latest to catch my attention was an investigation into Robert J. Vitale and his investment company, Realty Acquisitions & Trust. While there might be some argument … Read more »
Compliance Bricks and Mortar for May 31
These are some of the compliance-related stories that recently caught my attention. Professional SEC Whistleblower Firm Seeks Investors to Finance Investigations by Bruce Carton in Compliance Week Now, it appears that the first generation of professional whistleblowers is upon us. The ABA Journal reports that Ted Siedle, a former SEC lawyer who is now an “industry … Read more »
A Look Inside a Money Laundering Investigation
In The Infiltrator, Robert Mazur provides an encyclopedic account of his undercover work. Mazur spent years undercover infiltrating the criminal hierarchy of Colombia’s drug cartel, and the dirty bankers and businessmen willing to launder drug cash. His work led to the arrest of dozens of drug traffickers and money launders. It also led to the … Read more »
SEC Warns About Exemptive Order Compliance
The SEC’ Division of Investment Management issued new guidance to reminds firms to comply with conditions and representations in exemptive orders. The guidance suggests that firms “adopt and implement policies and procedures reasonably designed to ensure ongoing compliance with each representation and condition in any such order.” The guidance was triggered by June 2011 report … Read more »
SEC’s Compliance Outreach Program
I was able to attend the Boston stop on the SEC’s Compliance Outreach Program. Michael Garrity, the Associate Director of the Boston Examination Program kicked off the program, by highlighting some examination statistics. There are 1200 registered adviser in the Boston region. But there are only 50 examiners. Last year, they had 80 exams. They … Read more »