Doug Cornelius on compliance for private equity real estate
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 »
Before all my music was digital and playing out of bluetooth speakers, I was a big fan of Monster Cables for connecting my audio and video equipment. Now those cables just sit in a plastic bin in the basement. I hadn’t thought about Monster Cables until the SEC has published the first “bedbug” letter on EDGAR … Read more »
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 »
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 »
Compliance Building is a resource I publish for me, and share with you, to help the compliance profession. It’s free. I’m not looking for any of your compliance budget. But I am hoping you will consider allocating a piece of your charitable donation budget to one of the charities I support: the Pan Mass Challenge. … Read more »
Alain Lille, CEO of Petronian Industries is not happy with the new government. He wants to protect his investment in the country of Petronia. His oil firm deployed a great deal of capital looking for oil in Petronia and had a contract with the government for production. A roadblock appeared in last year’s election. The … Read more »
Back in 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission made it clear that providing jobs to family members of foreign government officials could be a violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. That SEC investigation found that BNY Mellon did not evaluate or hire the family members in accordance with its hiring standards and require a … Read more »
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 »
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 »
Seven years ago the Securities and Exchange Commission opened its Office of the Whistleblower under the authorization of the Dodd-Frank Act. Since then the SEC has received over 22,000 whistleblower tips, obtained over $1.4 billion in financial remedies related to those tips, and ordered over $266 million in whistleblower awards to 55 individuals. Now, the SEC wants … Read more »