Privacy and the safeguarding of customer information continues to be an important compliance topic from the SEC’s perspective, including its examination staff.  The SEC’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE) recently released a Risk Alert highlighting common examination deficiencies from registered advisers and broker-dealers related to Regulation S-P, a rule requiring that such registrants provide privacy notices to clients and implement customer information safeguarding policies.   A closer look at this Risk Alert along with…

Hello dear readers.  If you are reading this today, on April 1, and you have a December 31 fiscal year end, then you have survived your annual Form ADV amendment.  Congratulations!  And while many of you are doubtless gearing up for an annual Form PF filing due at the end of this month, you might also pause and take a few moments to dwell on everyone’s favorite rule under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940;…

On March 11, 2019, the SEC announced that it settled charges against 79 investment advisers who self-reported violations in connection with the SEC’s Share Class Selection Disclosure Initiative (the “Initiative”).  Please see the link below for a Legal Update on this enforcement action authored by Stephanie Monaco, Matthew Rossi and Leslie Cruz, which discusses the Initiative in greater detail as well as the eligibility requirements for advisers, reviews the regulatory activity in this area prior…

On February 28, 2019, the staff of the SEC’s Division of Investment Management granted no-action relief in connection with the 1940 Act’s in-person meeting requirements under Section 15 of the Investment Company Act of 1940 (the “1940 Act”).[1]  This relief would apply to the boards of directors of a registered investment companies (each a “fund”) and would permit them to, under certain delineated circumstances, approve certain investment advisory and principal underwriting contracts of…

It’s time for another periodic round-up of noteworthy SEC enforcement actions. Topics in this update: hypothetical and back-tested performance, cybersecurity/privacy, and private fund conflicts, and then a lightning round of other odds and ends.…

There’s clearly no summer lull at the SEC Division of Enforcement’s Asset Management Unit—over the past two weeks, we’ve seen a deluge of more cases impacting investment advisers than we’ve seen afternoon thunderstorms (and here in DC, that’s saying something).  In this post I’m going to briefly summarize some of the take-aways for these cases impacting the pay-to-play rule, the “testimonial rule,” and the custody rule.…