Congress, or at least the the House Financial Services Committee, is proposing some relief for private equity funds. The Committee approved the Small Business Capital Access and Job Preservation Act, along with three other pieces of legislation. The bill would exempt private equity fund managers from the registration and reporting requirements of the Investment Adviser … Read more »
Compliance Bricks and Mortar for June 21
These are some of the compliance-related stories that recently caught my attention: SEC Buys Itself a Headache by David Smyth in Cady Bar the Door If you’re reading this, you’re surely aware of the several-years-old-now fight between the SEC and some federal judges regarding the SEC’s policy of settling cases while allowing defendants to neither … Read more »
Trouble on Top of Trouble
MayfieldGentry Realty Advisors mastered the one-two by disclosing to a client that the firm stole their funds on the evening before they were brought up on charges for a pay-to-play violation. In May, 2012, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged former Detroit mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick, former city treasurer Jeffrey W. Beasley, and MayfieldGentry in … Read more »
Same Sex Marriage and Accredited Investors
The US Supreme Court is likely to come out shortly with its ruling on same sex marriages. The ruling may have an impact on fundraising for private funds and other private placements. One of the standards for private placements of securities is that the investors generally need to meet the definition of “accredited investors.” For … Read more »
Regulation of Investment Advisers
The Securities and Exchange Commission recently published a compendium describing the regulation of investment advisers: Regulation of Investment Advisers. It’s not light reading, but the 59-pages provide a helpful overview of investment adviser regulation. It comes from the Staff of the Investment Adviser Regulation Office in the Division of Investment Management. So it carries a … Read more »
Compliance Bricks and Mortar for June 14
These are some of the compliance-related stories that recently caught my attention. Investor Alert—Don’t Trade on Pump-And-Dump Stock Emails FINRA and the SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy are issuing this Investor Alert to warn investors to be on the lookout for email spam promoting “pump-and-dump” stock scams. SEC Compliance Program Annual Reviews: A … Read more »
The Leaky Merger and Insider Trading
On December 21, 2009, Sanofi-Aventis, a French pharmaceutical company, announced a tender offer for Chattem, a Tennessee-based distributor of over-the-counter pharmaceutical products, at the price of $93.50 per share. Shares of Chattem closed 32.60% higher than the prior trading day’s close of $69.98 and volume increased more than 3,000% to 10.3 million shares. This may … Read more »
Action in Congress
Robert Kaiser was granted rare access to the action behind the scenes of the creation of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Act of Congress is an enjoyable study of the enactment of that law, used as tool to explore how Congress works, and largely how it it doesn’t work. Kaiser was already an … Read more »
Red Flags for Insider Trading
Badin Rungruangnavarat was very lucky. He invested a bunch of cash from May 21 to May 28. When the market closed on May 29 he had unrealized gains of over $3 million and had achieved a return in excess of 3000%. Now he is unlucky because the Securities and Exchange Commission froze his investment gain … Read more »
Compliance Bricks and Mortar for June 7
These are some of the compliance-related stories that recently caught my attention. Madoff: Don’t let Wall Street scam you, like I did By Sital S. Patel in MarketWatch After all those years of racing to remain a step ahead of the authorities, Madoff has a few ideas about how the market can be made more … Read more »