Advisers to funds of funds who maintain custody of clients funds as defined in Investment Advisers Act Rule 206(4)-2, and whose fiscal year ends December 31,  have a deadline looming.   The deadline is June 30 (180 days of the end of their fiscal year) for distributing to fund investors audited financial statement prepared in accordance with GAAP to fund investors  is approaching. … Read more →

From Section 1088 of the Dodd-Frank Act comes final rules and guidelines from the SEC that would require entities covered by the rules to establish programs aimed at detecting, preventing, and mitigating identity theft.  Previously, Dodd-Frank required the SEC and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) to adopt joint rules requiring entities that are subject to these agencies’ respective … Read more →

As part of its National Exam Program, the SEC’s Office of Compliance and Examinations (“OCIE”) has just mailed a letter to senior executives and Chief Compliance Officers of newly-registered investment advisers apprising them of what practices they can expect to be examined.   While the letter primarily concerns risk-based exams of advisers to private funds that registered with the SEC … Read more →

Add a few recent SEC actions against hedge funds that include a hedge fund manager running a $37 million Ponzi scheme; a former director in a compensation scheme that netted hundreds of thousands of dollars in undisclosed income; co-founders of a Chicago-area investment firm misleading investors and supervisory failures resulting in penalties of more than $1 million; a private fund … Read more →

It’s a New Year!  And for advisers it’s again time for a new year’s resolution, only this kind of resolution is not voluntary.  Like holidays, it comes once a year, and while the responsibility for it falls on the adviser, the obligation to ”administer” (or the commitment to follow our new year’s theme) falls on the Chief Compliance Officer - it’s called the Annual Compliance Review.  Further, consider it … Read more →

With a renewed focus on analytics and more readily available data, expect the SEC’s scrutiny of investment advisers, including advisers to mutual funds, hedge funds, and private equity funds, to get  tougher. In December, in a speech before the Consumer Federation of America’s Financial Services Conference, the SEC’s Director of Enforcement, Robert Khuzami, once again emphasized many of the organizational … Read more →

Under Title IV of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, effective July 21, 2011, changes to the registration and reporting and recordkeeping requirements of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 require advisers to private funds (hedge funds and private equity funds) to register with the SEC. In the past, many of these … Read more →