Earlier this month, the SEC announced the creation of its Office of Risk and Strategy to operate within its Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE). The new office will consolidate and streamline OCIE’s risk assessment, market surveillance, and quantitative analysis teams and provide operational risk management and organizational strategy…
In February, California State Treasurer, John Chiang along with State Assemblyman Ken Cooley sponsored Assembly Bill (AB) 2833 which, if enacted, would require private equity firms to disclose fees and expenses for public pensions or retirement systems in California. On March 17, 2016 Assemblyman Cooley submitted an amendment to the…
At the end of this month, the annual updating amendments for investment advisers’ Form ADV will be due. The following are some of the important annual compliance obligations investment advisers either registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) or with a particular state (“Investment Adviser”) and commodity pool…
In commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Investment Company Act and Investment Advisers Act, David Grim discussed his views about the past, present and future of the investment management industry. He selected four topics which in his opinion best illustrate the adaptability which the authors gave the 1940 laws governing…
(This article was published in the first February 2016 issue of “The Review of Securities and Commodities Regulation” and is reprinted here with permission.) The last half of 2015 has been characterized by a lot of debate and press attention on the role of the Chief Compliance Officer (“CCO”) at…
On January 11, the Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE) of the SEC announced its 2016 Examination Priorities (“Priorities”). To promote compliance, prevent fraud and identify market risk, OCIE examines investment advisers, investment companies, broker-dealers, municipal advisors, transfer agents, clearing agencies, and other regulated entities. In 2016, OCIE will…
On November 3, 2015, an Illinois federal jury convicted Michael Coscia, a high-frequency commodities trader, of six counts of commodities fraud and six counts of spoofing—entering a buy or sell order with the intent to cancel before the order’s execution.1 Coscia’s conviction was the first under the criminal anti-spoofing provisions…
On November 18, 2015, the staff from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (“CFTC”) Division of Swap Dealer and Intermediary Oversight issued a swap dealer de minimis exception preliminary report (“Preliminary Report”). The Preliminary Report was issued pursuant to the SEC and CFTC joint regulation defining the term “swap dealer”…
Congress has replaced the TEFRA partnership audit rules with a new regime that redistributes the burdens of the audit process between partnerships and partners on the one hand and the IRS on the other, and also eliminates many rights that individual partners might previously have had in the audit process. Even…
On December 1, 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged GAW Miners, LLC (“GAW Miners”), ZenMiner, LLC (“ZenMiner”) and Homero Joshua Garza (“Garza”) the managing member of both GAW Miners and ZenMiner (together the, “Defendants”) with fraud under (i) Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (“Exchange…