Daily Compliance News: July 11, 2025, The What is a COI Edition
Nonprofit Basics: Conflict of Interest Policies and Best Practices for Approving Insider Compensation
Nonprofit Basics: Insider Transactions and Nonprofits – What’s the Big Deal?
Conflicts of Interest in Healthcare and Elsewhere
Payment for Order Flow (PFOF) and Gamification: Your Questions Answered
Bar Exam Toolbox Podcast Episode 124: Listen and Learn -- Duty of Loyalty (Corporations)
Law School Toolbox Podcast Episode 282: Listen and Learn -- Duty of Loyalty (Corporations)
What to Do When Your University, FBI, or DOJ Knocks on Your Door: Responding to University, Criminal, and Civil Investigations
Videocast: Asset management regulation in 2020 videocast series – The ADV season
Videocast: Asset management regulation in 2020 videocast series – DOL: What’s ahead
Podcast: Credit Funds: Compliance Considerations for Valuation
CONVERGE18-Preview Podcasts-David Bunker on COIs in the Gig Economy
Podcast - Credit Funds: A Framework for Addressing and Mitigating Conflicts of Interest
Day 7 of One Month to Better Investigations and Report-How Investigations Inform Remediation
Day 15 of One Month to Better Compliance Through HR-Employment Separation Issues
Bill Beutler on Editing Wikipedia
Rules for rewarding 'super' condo board members
Bill on Bankruptcy: US Airways Need a Merger More than AMR
The SEC on June 2, 2025, filed a complaint against David A. Nagler and New Line Capital LLC (Defendants) in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico for allegedly breaching their fiduciary duties and defrauding...more
Presented below is a highlight of eight noteworthy enforcement actions the Securities and Exchange Commission has taken against investment advisers through the second quarter of 2023. Since the beginning of this year, the...more
It’s a pattern we often see in boom-and-bust cycles—disputes rising in the period after a wave crests. SPAC deal volume hit an unprecedented high in 2021, but then slowed down in 2022 alongside IPOs. However, the fallout from...more
Who may be interested: Registered Investment Advisers, Mutual Funds, Compliance Officers - Quick Take: The SEC settled charges against two affiliated registered investment advisers, alleging that the advisers failed to...more
Who may be interested: Investment advisers. Quick Take: The SEC announced settled charges against an investment adviser for the adviser’s breach of its fiduciary duty to its clients by failing to fully and fairly...more
We anticipate a more assertive regulatory enforcement program under the Biden administration, particularly focused on fund managers’ conflicts of interest, advisers’ codes of ethics, and related policies and procedures...more
In August 2020, the SEC issued two orders against VALIC Financial Advisors Inc. (VFA) related to VFA’s management of 403(b) and 457(b) plans. These matters arise out of two of the SEC’s enforcement initiatives, the Teachers...more
The United States Department of Labor (“DOL”) has had a very active summer regulating the securities industry. Yes, you heard it right, the DOL has made certain pronouncements that have considerable effect on the securities...more
In this issue, we summarize regulatory, litigation and industry developments from May to September 2019 impacting the investment management sector, including SEC action on standards of conduct for broker-dealers and...more
On Aug. 1, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC) charged Commonwealth Equity Services LLC, dba Commonwealth Financial Network (Commonwealth), a registered independent investment adviser to private clients (but not...more
On May 9, 2018, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") announced it charged a registered municipal advisor (the "MA Firm") and its owner (the "MA Owner") with defrauding their client, a Texas school district, in...more
The SEC’s regulation of the private investment funds industry has generated significant attention and commentary, as well as a fair amount of hand-wringing. From our perspective as lawyers, however, there is a relatively...more
Non-Enforcement - Remember to Update Your Risk Disclosure on an Ongoing Basis - The staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued guidance reminding mutual funds, exchange traded funds, and other...more
The SEC filed its first action against a municipal adviser for breach of fiduciary duty based on a provision amended by Dodd-Frank. The agency also continued to file insider trading actions in an administrative forum....more
On March 15, 2016, the SEC announced its first enforcement proceeding for breach of the fiduciary duty for municipal advisors created by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. The SEC issued a cease and desist order alleging that...more
The Commission brought its first action based on Exchange Act Section 15B(c)(1) as amended by Section 275 of Dodd-Frank. Under that provision municipal advisors and their associated persons have a fiduciary duty to their...more
The SEC charged Kansas-based Central States Capital Markets, its CEO, and two employees for breaching their fiduciary duty by failing to disclose a conflict of interest to a municipal client. The case is the SEC’s first to...more
Non-Enforcement - SEC Decides Against Mounting an Appeal in Koch Ruling - The July 2015 ruling by the D.C. Circuit Court in Koch v. SEC will apparently not be challenged by the SEC. The Court ruled in that...more
Overview of SPACs and Latest Trends - A number of recent successful business combination transactions involving special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) led by prominent sponsors have driven a resurgence in the SPAC...more
The SEC announced that three private equity fund advisers within The Blackstone Group have agreed to pay nearly $39 million to settle charges that they failed to fully inform investors about benefits that the advisers...more
Non-Enforcement - Form PF — What Purpose? SEC registered investment advisers with at least $150 million of assets under management in private funds are required to periodically file Form PF with the SEC. The...more
The SEC sanctioned a registered investment adviser for breaching its fiduciary duty by failing to disclose to its clients a conflict of interest created by a portfolio manager’s outside business activity and personal...more
The last thing hedge funds need is another wake up call about the risks of liability for trading on the basis of material nonpublic information. But if they did, a July 17 article in the Wall Street Journal would provide it....more