The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently released the 2022 Examination Priorities from the Division of Examinations, formerly known as the Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations. This annual release provides insight into the areas that the SEC plans to highlight when examining investment advisers during the coming year. While…
Earlier this month the National Society of Compliance Professionals, a nonprofit membership organization that supports compliance personnel and programs in the financial services industry, published a report entitled “Firm and CCO Liability Framework.” The report is designed as an aid to compliance professionals and as a proposal to regulators, including…
The SEC, on June 5th, adopted a comprehensive set of rules and interpretations that will have a profound effect on the brokerage and advisory industries going forward, first and foremost by revising the standard-of-conduct applicable to broker-dealers and their registered representatives in dealings with retail customers. Even casual observers will…
The North American Securities Administrators Association—also known as “NASAA”—a cooperative association consisting of the chief securities regulators for each of the 50 United States, as well as Canadian and Mexican jurisdictions, has recently voted to adopt a model information security rule. NASAA’s new model information security rule could—if widely implemented…
In its latest Risk Alert, the SEC’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (“OCIE”) heeds advisers and broker/dealers to take a fresh look at their policies and procedures in the area of electronic customer record storage in light of shortcomings discovered by OCIE’s staff as part of recently-conducted regular examinations.…
The SEC’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations recently conducted examinations of privacy notices and safeguarding policies of SEC-registered investment advisers and broker-dealers adopted pursuant to Regulation S-P. As a result of these examinations, the SEC issued a Risk Alert identifying common deficiencies that are important to keep in mind…
On February 4, 2019, the Commissioner of Securities of the State of Georgia and the Office of the Secretary of State announced its intent to amend the rules governing examination requirements for registered representatives of a broker-dealer and investment adviser representatives. According to the Commissioner, the primary purposes of these…
FINRA has alerted its Member Firms to be on the watch for a fraudulent phishing email scheme targeted at compliance personnel. A phishing scheme typically uses email or some other type of electronic message to trick the recipient into clicking a malicious link or infected file attachment by mimicking a…
FINRA has announced a new self-reporting initiative covering potential violations by its Member Firms of various rules governing share class recommendations relating to 529 Plans. See FINRA Regulatory Notice 19-04 (Jan. 28, 2019). Similar to the SEC’s recent self-reporting initiative regarding mutual fund share class selection in connection with 12b-1…
At this time of year, it is important for registered investment advisers to assure that they are in compliance with federal and/or state rules requiring them to monitor their supervised persons’ security holdings and transactions for compliance with the firm’s code of ethics. Even seasoned compliance professionals will encounter questions…