New Qualified Client Definition Effective September 19, 2011 The Dodd-Frank Act required the SEC to revise upward the dollar thresholds for a person to be deemed a “qualified client” pursuant to Rule 205-3. The qualified client definition is important because SEC registered investment advisers (including hedge fund managers) cannot charge [...]

CFTC Regulation 4.22 Overview CFTC registered commodity pool operators have a number of regulatory and compliance issues to be aware of.  In addition to a having a compliance program which addresses the business and regulatory issues applicable to the manager, one of the more important compliance requirements is found in [...]

CBO Calculates Cost of House Hedge Fund Bill This past week the Congressional Budge Office (“CBO”) released a cost estimate of H.R. 3818, the Private Fund Investment Advisers Registration Act of 2009.  In a number of private conversations I have had about hedge fund registration over the last 9-12 months [...]

In light of the recent focus on insider trading, we are publishing the SEC’s discussion on Insider Trading which can also be found here.  The information below contains a broad overview of some of the important aspects which hedge fund managers should understand about the insider trading prohibitions. For a [...]

Employees of Registered IAs Must Generally be Registered State-registered investment advisory firms need to make sure that their employees who are deemed to be “investment advisory representatives” are appropriately registered. This means that any employee (or owner) of the IA firm who provides investment advice or who has supervisory authority [...]

SEC Brings Case Against Raj Rajaratnam Below is another case of a hedge fund manager who was alledgedly engaged in insider trading. The SEC seems particularly excited about this cased because of the high profile nature of the manager who was involved. The major charge is against Raj Rajaratnam who [...]

http://www.hedgefundlawblog.com SEC Approves  New Exam for “Limited Representative” Investment Bankers The long anticipated Series 79 Examination has finally received approval by the SEC, and information will now be made available to the public regarding the content of the exam, the modifications to the original licensure rules, and the scope and [...]

One of the major regulatory pushes this year by the SEC has been to revamp the short sale rules.  Today the SEC announced some specific measures which are intended to curtail abusive short sales.  We will likely have more comments on this issue going forward and will publish hedge fund [...]

FINRA to Announce New Investment Banking Examination For many years now all brokers have been treated equally with regard to examination requirements. Whether a broker was working solely with retail clients or solely with institutions on a private placement basis, each such broker would need to take and pass the [...]

Last year we discussed the SEC’s ban on short sales and the implementation of the new Form-SH.  Next week the SEC will be considering modifications to the short sales rules.  The press release is below and we will continue to bring updated information on this issue. **** SEC to Hold [...]