Tag: Never-Before Examined Initiative

Document Request List for Never-Before-Examined Advisers

aca compliance

In January, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced in its annual exam priorities for 2014 that it wanted to emphasize exams on never-before examined firms that had been registered before 2012. Then in February, the SEC officially announced its never-before-examined initiative. It looks a lot like the presence exams.

ACA Compliance got its hands on an initial document request list used by OCIE in conducting a never-before-examined exam.

Unlike other exam letters, this one explicitly states that it is part of OCIE’s never-before-examined initiative. It sounds like an on-site visit is not part of the initial protocol. But this may vary from region to region.

I’ve added this example to Compliance Building‘s collection of 13 other SEC Exam Document Request Examples. If you have an example and are willing to share it, you can send it to [email protected]. I will always delete any information about the firm and I will only publish any additional information about the letter that you consent to.

Disclosure: I’ve used ACA Compliance as a provider.

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Never Been Examined by the SEC? Look in the Lobby

SEC Seal 2

With the flood of new registered investment advisers after the enactment of Dodd-Frank, the Securities and Exchange Commission launched the presence exam program. The goal was to get to a big chunk of the newly registered fund managers. What got left out was the big chunk of investment advisers who had never been examined. That is about to change.

The SEC announced a new initiative directed at never-before examined registered investment advisers. It looks a lot like the presence exams.

The letter highlights five high-risk areas that are likely to be the focus of the exam:

  1. Compliance program
  2. Filings/disclosure
  3. Marketing
  4. Portfolio management
  5. Safety of Client assets

The presence exam initiative was planned to have a two year life and that life is just about expired. The SEC’s exam priorities for 2014 identified the never-before examined as a priority area for the SEC this year. So it’s no surprise that this new initiative is being rolled out.

The only surprising thing is that it lacks a snappy title like “presence exam.” The “Never-Before Examined Initiative” lacks pizazz.

Letters were sent out this week. So if you fit into that category of advisers who registered before 2011 and have not had an SEC exam, look in the mail for your letter.

What can you do if you get one of the letters? Prepare for the exam. Grab one of the sample SEC request letters and give yourself a week to pull the information together.

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