The Continuing Rise of the Professional Whistleblower

In 2016, the Securities and Exchange Commission opened its doors to the professional whistleblower when it first granted a whistleblower award to a company outsider. It’s becoming more lucrative. Last week the Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced an award of approximately $30 million to a whistleblower who voluntarily provided key original information that led to a successful … Read more »

Compliance Bricks and Mortar for July 13

These are some of the compliance-related stories that recently caught my attention. SEC Investor Advocate’s 2019 objectives include broker-dealer standards of conduct, Kokesh concerns by Amanda Maine, J.D. in Jim Hamilton’s World of Securities Regulation The SEC’s Office of the Investor Advocate (OIA) has submitted a report on its objectives for fiscal year 2019, which … Read more »

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Beware of Social Media Consultants

The Securities and Exchange Commission packaged together five separate settled proceedings against registered investment advisers, investment adviser representatives, and a social media consultant for violations of the Testimonial Rule the use of social media and the internet. If you get a pitch from someone to increase your firm’s presence in search results ask that person … Read more »

The One With Cross-Fund Transactions

United Development Funding and its investment platforms have been under attack for a few years. It looks it has finally come to grips with its mistakes. UDF is closing out investigations into its funding of real estate investments from multiple investment platforms. The attacks started in 2015 when Kyle Bass, who runs Dallas-based hedge fund Hayman … Read more »

2018 Global Study on Occupational Fraud and Abuse by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners

Study 2,690 cases of occupational fraud over 18 months and you may see some trends. The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners conducted a survey of its 41,000+ certified fraud examiners to collect data on the single biggest fraud case they investigated from January 2016 to October 2017. The study identified six behavioral red flags that … Read more »