Doug Cornelius on compliance for private equity real estate
President-Elect Trump has many conflicts of interest as he prepares to take office. It’s been a long time since the president-elect has been so deeply involved in a active businesses. His appointment of Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State creates another batch of conflicts for the administration and for Exxon-Mobil. As is typical with many … Read more »
In a new paper, researchers found that hedge fund managers who own powerful sports cars take on more investment risk and are more likely to engage in fraudulent behavior. The inverse is also true: Drivers of minivans tend to deliver less volatile returns, according to the study. “Specifically, sports car drivers deliver returns that are … Read more »
Widespread cheating by Russian athletes has been uncovered. One of the key figures was Russian Dr. Rodchenkov who had breakthrough work on the detection of peptides and long-term metabolites of prohibited substances. In the jargon of espionage, Dr. Rodchenkov was a double agent. While operating at the forefront of doping detection, he was secretly developing a … Read more »
These are some of the compliance related stories that recently caught my attention. Luis Aguilar recalls harrowing times at SEC by Jeff Benjamin in Investment News Mr. Aguilar, who served as an SEC commissioner from July 2008 through December 2015, recalls his first year as being “the most active period with internal restructuring and changes … Read more »
CCOs did not sleep well for one. Monitoring employee contributions to political candidates is difficult. The political contributions do not originate from the firm, so there is no accounting control that you can put in place. You can’t ban political contribution if you have an office in California. California labor law seems to make such a … Read more »
If you were expecting a tidal wave of changes from the Supreme Court, you will be disappointed. On Tuesday, the Court delivered its opinion in Salman v. U.S. Prosecutors can see a glimmer of upside because they do not have to prove that something valuable changed hands in order to prove the crime of insider trading. Newman … Read more »
These are some of the compliance related stories that recently caught my attention. Trump Risk Factors Begin to Appear in SEC Documents by Steve Quinlivan in Dodd-Frank.com Risk factors related to uncertainties resulting from possible policies that may be implemented by President-elect Trump have begun to appear in SEC filings: TPI Composites, Inc. Form 10-Q: … Read more »
We are in a time of transition at the Securities and Exchange Commission. There are two vacancies on the Commission and Chair Mary Jo White has announced her departure. Although there are changes coming to the highest level of the SEC, the vast majority of the SEC personnel are staying in place and continuing their … Read more »
The Robare case popped to my attention last year because the Securities and Exchange Commission was focused on the use of the word “may” instead of “will” as adequate disclose of a fee arrangement. My eyes rolled at such distinction. The administrative law judge felt the same way and dismissed the case. Now the Commission … Read more »
Politicians and their staff are prone to conflicts of interest. Legislative, executive, and regualtory actions will affect the value of companies and their investors. Hillary Clinton failed to address the conflicts between her actions as Secretary of State and the fundraising of the Clinton Foundation. One of the campaign promises of Donald Trump was to tackle … Read more »