At Wednesday’s Open Meeting the Securities and Exchange Commission took up the discussion of their proposed rules on pay-to-play for investment advisers. The proposal is a new Rule 206 (4)-5 under the Investment Advisers Act. The Commission voted unanimously to adopt the rule. The rule will have three main prongs: Two Year Time-Out An investment … Read more »
Should Private Funds Have more than $10 Billion?
The current draft of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act has a surprise in it for big hedge funds. By “surprise” I mean tax. Title XVI: Financial Crisis Special Assessment has a $19 billion fee ready to be assessed against financial companies institutions with more than $50 billion in assets and hedge … Read more »
GRC Professional Survey
The folks at the Open Compliance & Ethics Group have been developing a professional education and certification program for governance, risk management and compliance professionals. Basically, it’s a program that helps to build on existing credentials and “round out” an executive’s skills so that they are more effective at integrating all of these processes (e.g., … Read more »
Final Text of the Private Fund Investment Advisers Registration Act of 2010
There is a lot happening in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. (Yes, that appears to be the agreed upon name of the financial reform bill.) I’m most interested in its Title IV: Private Fund Investment Advisers Registration Act of 2010(.pdf). The act will remove the current exemption from SEC registration for … Read more »
PCAOB is Fixed – May Take Other Agencies Down (or get Fixed)
In the Free Enterprise vs. PCAOB decision, the Supreme Court found that a double layer of limitation of firing for cause is unconstitutional. You can’t have an agency where the officers are only removable for cause under another federal agency whose members are only removable for cause. One level of protected tenure is acceptable, but … Read more »
PCAOB is Ruled Unconstitutional
This morning, the United States Supreme Court issued its opinion in the case of Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB. For me in the compliance world, the case was about the viability of PCAOB under Sarbanes-Oxley. For the constitutional scholars it is an important separation of powers case. Responding to concerns about accounting that led to … Read more »
Chief Compliance Officers and Private Investment Funds
If you are running a private investment fund, do you need a chief compliance officer? If you are not registered with the SEC, it’s a gray area. If you are registered with SEC, then “yes.” Rule 206(4)-7 requires a registered investment adviser to “[d]esignate an individual (who is a supervised person) responsible for administering the … Read more »
SEC’s Rule on Pay to Play is Coming
It’s been almost a year, but it looks like the SEC is ready to issue its rule on political contributions by investment advisers. They announced the subject matter for the Wednesday June 30 10:00 am open meeting: The Commission will consider whether to adopt a new rule and related rule amendments under the Investment Advisers … Read more »
Compliance Bits and Pieces for June 25
Here are some recent stories that I found interesting: Officially our best-ever cease and desist from ThinkGeek But what makes this cease and desist so very, very special is that it’s for a fake product we launched for April Fool’s day. No Fund for States to Oversee Advisers? by Mark J. Astarita, Esq. on SECLaw.com … Read more »
Export Control Limitations
I don’t spend much time dealing with export regulations. It’s kind of hard to ship a commercial office building oversees. The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) is responsible for implementing and enforcing the Export Administration Regulations (EAR), which regulate the export and reexport of most commercial items. Other agencies regulate more specialized exports. If … Read more »