Today I am attending the Private Equity Tax and Compliance Practices 2010 conference. This afternoon, I’m joining Karen Hansen of Flag Capital Management on the CCO Roundtable. Many private equity companies have escaped from having to register with the SEC and avoid the regulatory load of registration and compliance. The current draft of the financial … Read more »
The Tree of Contracts
An image from A Treatise on Commercial Law: With Forms of Ordinary Legal and Business Documents, and Copious Questions with References, by A. Norton Fitch. This 1889 image is part of the Yale Law Library collection and published in their Flickr gallery. Read more »
Private Investment Funds and Reporting Requirements Under the Ethics Code Rule
As I wrote about yesterday on the code of ethics for an investment adviser, one of the requirements of registering with SEC as an investment adviser is implementing a code of ethics. The most involved part of the code is the extensive reporting requirement on securities activities to the chief compliance officer. Rule 204A-1 under … Read more »
Code of Ethics for an Investment Adviser
With the upcoming requirement that advisers to many private investment funds must register with the SEC, I figured it was time to look at some of the requirements that registration will impose. Section 204A of the Investment Advisers Act requires registered investment advisers to “establish, maintain, and enforce written policies and procedures reasonably designed, taking … Read more »
It Will be up to the SEC to Define Venture Capital
With the financial reform bill set to eliminate the 15 client rule exemption for registration under the Investment Advisers Act, the only remaining exemption for fund companies with over $150 million in assets under management will be for venture capital. The Congressional conference decided to not include the Senate’s exemption for private equity. The bill … Read more »
Compliance Bits and Pieces for June 18
Here are some recent stories that I found interesting: Who Does Your Chief Compliance Officer Report To? by Thomas Fox in a guest post on The FCPA Blog Should a CCO report to a company’s Board of Directors, or an appropriate Board committee such as an Audit Committee or Compliance Committee? Or can a CCO … Read more »
Supreme Court Rules on the Privacy of Text Messages
Sort of. The Supreme Court issued its ruling in Ontario v. Quon regarding a police chief reviewing the content of a police officer’s text messages with consent or a warrant. Many commenters hoped that the Court would issue a broad statement on an employee’s privacy rights in this age of cloud computing and web 2.0. … Read more »
Regulation of Advisers to Private Funds
One of the differences between the Senate and House financial reform bills is how they treat advisers to private equity funds. The Senate bill has an exemption for private equity and venture capital. The House bill only has an exemption for venture capital. Since I work for a private equity firm, I am very focused … Read more »
Compliance and Humor
At the Compliance Week 2010 Conference I was surprised to discover that the improv comedy group, Second City, had dived into the world of compliance and ethics awareness. They debuted three of their awareness videos during the conference keynotes. They are now available on their Real Biz Shorts website: Cracking the Code Up-Setting a Good … Read more »
Enterprise 2.0, Policies and Compliance
Mike Gotta asked me to join him on a panel about the policy and compliance issues at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston. This was my fifth Enterprise 2.0 conference: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2009 San Francisco. That the audience was interested in compliance and regulatory issues is an indication of the industry maturing. “Policy formation, … Read more »