Doug Cornelius on compliance for private equity real estate
I would guess that most of you reading this story do not share my love of the Tour de France. (Except Tom Fox.) The race can be a confusing mix of skinny guys, tarted up with sponsors like a NASCAR racer, with hard to pronounce names, following tactics unusual outside of cycling. But I since … Read more »
These are some stories that recently caught my attention: Inside Straight: The Shoemaker’s Children by Mark Herrmann in Above the Law I recently heard a law firm presentation describing the UK Bribery Act along the lines I just laid out. A member of the audience asked the obvious question: “If bribery of anyone — including … Read more »
NEW YORK We are starting a new forum for real estate fund compliance managers in New York. The first meeting is noon on July 24 near Chelsea Market. BOSTON The Boston group of real estate fund compliance professionals will meet again in September after taking the summer off. ABOUT The groups meet to discuss the … Read more »
An SEC-registered investment adviser entered into a settlement agreement with the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control for allegedly failing to maintain a compliance program. The problem was triggered when the adviser’s foreign affiliate caused one of its clients to invest in a Cayman Islands fund that appeared on OFAC’s list of Specially … Read more »
UPDATE (9/10/2019): The CEO/CCO in question contacted me and told me her side of the story with regards to the SEC. According to her, an investor sued based on the SEC case and the charges were largely dismissed. As I point out and have now highlighted, I relied on the order to illustrate what the … Read more »
The crowdfunding provisions in Title III of the JOBS Act provide an exemption from registration under the Securities Act of 1933 for securities offered by through crowdfunding, provided the numerous requirements are met. An intermediary that seeks to engage in crowdfunding must be registered as a broker-dealer or a funding portal. I expect many people … Read more »
These are some recent compliance-related stories that caught my eye. How To Define Your Terms In 300 Pages by Theo Francis in NPR’s Planet Money In Tuesday’s show, economist Luigi Zingales warned that massive, overly complicated laws and regulations go a long way toward undermining public trust in the government. They leave only lobbyists and … Read more »
The Securities and Exchange Commission charged medical device company Orthofix International N.V. with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. A subsidiary paid bribes, referred to as “chocolates”, to Mexican officials in order to obtain lucrative sales contracts with government hospitals. (I assume every commentator on this story will reference Forrest Gump, including me.) The “chocolates” … Read more »
Anyone who works with sanctions monitoring most likely hates ships. Their names are so common that the ships’ names routinely cause false positives. (My software has a button to exclude ships’ names, but I often forget to activate that feature.) Now the Iranian oil sanctions program is highlighting some issues with ships. The tiny Pacific … Read more »
The Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act requires the Securities and Exchange Commission to amend Regulation A, raising the threshold for use of that exemption from $5 million to $50 million. From the numbers I’ve seen, Regulation A was rarely used as a source of raising capital. It seemed strange that it was included in the … Read more »