Investment Funds & Advisers Insights

On September 14, 2021, the SEC brought an unusual enforcement action against App Annie, a so-called “alt data” provider, and its co-founder. A link to the SEC’s release is here. As set forth in the settled SEC order, App Annie provides an analytics product to app companies that allows those

Last month the SEC filed a novel insider trading case worth taking a look at (a link to the SEC release is here). The SEC alleged that Matthew Panuwat, an executive at the publicly traded biopharma company Medivation Inc., learned that his company was being acquired by Pfizer. At this

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed A.B. 150 into law on July 15, 2021. This law creates a workaround to the $10,000 cap on a federal income tax deduction for state and local taxes (“SALT”). The law was unanimously approved by the California Assembly and Senate on July 1, 2021 and enacted

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) recently announced in Advisers Act Release 5756 that it has adjusted for inflation the two thresholds used to determine whether a client or investor is a “qualified client” pursuant to Rule 205-3 under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940: (1) the threshold

The majority of insider trading compliance questions this year, by a wide margin, have been related to SPAC PIPE offerings.  SPACs have been a hot topic for some time now and it has become quite common for a SPAC to raise additional money through a PIPE to finance the acquisition

The Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) has finalized significant revisions to its rules under the Investment Advisers Act governing advertising and solicitation by investment advisers (the “Rule”).  The Rule will not become effective for at least 60 days, at which time advisers will have 18 months to transition to

This is our annual letter briefly reviewing various issues that our investment adviser clients should consider over the next few weeks.  We will be pleased to respond to questions, assist you in preparing needed forms and otherwise assist you in satisfying any of the requirements discussed below. Please contact John

The Securities Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) has rescheduled its compliance outreach program’s national seminar for investment companies and investment advisers to noon EST on November 19, 2020.  This program is intended to help Chief Compliance Officers and other senior personnel at investment companies and investment advisory firms enhance their compliance

In September and October, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (“BEA”) is conducting its 2019 Benchmark Survey of Financial Services Transactions Between U.S. Financial Services Providers and Foreign Persons.  This survey requires certain U.S. persons to file a Form BE-180 every five years, and there are important changes introduced for

The “accredited investor” definition largely has been unchanged since 1982, but on August 26, 2020, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) adopted amendments to expand the definition in Rules 215 and 501(a) of Regulation D under the Securities Act of 1933 (the “Securities Act”).  To conform with these changes,

Two topics from recent SEC investment adviser enforcement cases, disclosure language and insider trading policies. Adviser Disclosures: What does “may” mean? In grammar school we all learned that the words “may” and “are” mean different things.  The SEC recently reminded advisers that the difference can be material when it comes

The due dates to prepare, file and deliver a new part of Form ADV, Form CRS (Customer Relationship Summary), are approaching rapidly for most SEC-registered investment advisers that have separate account clients.  An SEC-registered investment adviser with “retail clients” must file Form CRS on the IARD by June 30, 2020,

As we navigate these unprecedented times, we wanted to share our thoughts about the COVID-19 crisis, and provide some constructive ideas on how to manage right now and prepare for what may come. As many of you know, our firm’s fund practice started in the early 1980s, and we have

Updated March 26, 2020 – On Friday, March 13, 2020, the SEC announced conditional relief for the due dates of certain Investment Advisers Act reports and requirements.  The SEC’s release is available at  https://www.sec.gov/rules/other/2020/ia-5463.pdf. On Wednesday March 25, 2020, the SEC revised the conditional relief to remove certain conditions.  This

This is our annual letter briefly reviewing various issues that our investment adviser clients should consider over the next few weeks.  We will be pleased to respond to questions, assist you in preparing needed forms and otherwise assist you in satisfying any of the requirements discussed in this letter. Please

Last October I spoke at a compliance conference on the subject of SEC investment adviser examinations.  The article below is a summary of the presentation, updated with information from yesterday’s release of the SEC’s 2020 Examination Priorities. The Examination Program.  The SEC’s examination of investment advisers – conducted by the

FINRA has updated its Rules 5130 and 5131, which govern allocations of “new issues,” effective January 1, 2020.  Broadly speaking, FINRA has added new categories and broadened the categories of investors that are exempt from the rules’ restrictions (for example, certain sovereign entities and retirement plans), narrowed the types of

Last week the SEC’s Division of Enforcement published its Annual Report for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2019 (available here).  The Report showed that in FY 2019 the Commission brought 526 stand-alone enforcement actions, an increase of over 7% from the 490 cases brought in 2018.  Likewise, a total

Earlier this year, the National Futures Association (NFA) announced that individuals registered as associated persons (APs) of NFA members that engage in swaps activity (for example, commodity pool operators (CPOs), commodity trading advisors (CTAs), futures commission merchants (FCMs) and introducing brokers (IBs)) will need to meet new Swaps Proficiency Requirements.

Shartsis Friese LLP recently commented on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Concept Release, Harmonization of Securities Offering Exemptions.  The letter is available here. If you have any questions, please contact one of the attorneys in the Investment Funds & Advisers Group at Shartsis Friese LLP: John Broadhurst, Geoffrey Haynes, Carolyn