A U.S. judge in Utah has entered final judgments against hedge fund adviser Thompson Consulting and three officials with the firm, including its chief compliance officer.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has obtained an emergency court order freezing assets held by Atoka, Okla.-based Jeremiah Yancy and his firm, Longbranch Group International of Houston, Texas.
Deutsche Bank has hired Frank Gecsedi, a former Merrill Lynch compliance officer, to help cover the firm's exchange-traded fund business.
JPMorgan Asset Management has disagreed with the Securities and Exchange Commission over disclosure requirements in the agency's planned target date fund reforms.
The Securities and Exchange Commission will not require money market mutual fund boards to pick credit rating agencies for now, solving a potential conflict with the Dodd-Frank Act.
Shearman & Sterling has raised questions about the practicality of the Securities and Exchange Commission's proposal to cap 12b-1 fees.
Vanguard has criticized the Securities and Exchange Commission's plan to require that marketing materials for target date funds include a statement that they should not be selected based solely on age or retirement date.
The Securities and Exchange Commission staff plans to appeal an administrative law judge's order that it hand over documents subpoenaed by respondents to the agency's case against Morgan Keegan to members of the Commission for review, according to Peter Anderson of Sutherland Asbill & Brennan.
Two women accused of running an alleged Ponzi-like scheme from an Anaheim, Calif., hotel have reached, or are close to reaching, regulatory settlements.
Gregory Todd Froning, a Coppell, Texas-based registered representative, has consented to the entry of a permanent injunction following Securities and Exchange Commission accusations that he misappropriated more than $800,000 from investors.
Registration Issues Investment advisers that have to switch from Securities and Exchange Commission oversight to state registration will face challenges, according to Lisa Roth of the National Association of Independent Broker/Dealers (see Regulatory Talk, page 7). The NAIBD has many dually-registered firm members. Under the Dodd-Frank Act, most advisers that manage less than $100 million must register with the states they operate in within a year. "Because this is a coast-to-coast initiative, one would hope that there is extended time period to register," Roth told CR. While switching from state to SEC registration is relatively painless, going the other direction requires filling out paperwork and potentially a significantly different approval process from state to state, said Roth, a member of the NAIBD's board of directors. For instance, states such as Arizona conduct more thorough qualitative reviews of an adviser's application than others, peering into the firm's advisory agreements, balance sheets and other documents, she added. Meanwhile, other states can take six months to approve an adviser's application, and it is unclear how such a lag will affect those firms that are swapping to state registration, Roth said. Patricia Struck, administrator of the Division of Securities with the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions and chair of the North American Securities Administrators Association's Investment Adviser Section, told CR that state regulators are looking to streamline the switchover and that they welcome input on doing so.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has granted no-action relief to investment advisers enabling industry professionals to avoid having to report investments in so-called 529 Plans, which enable individuals to invest in certain qualified tuition programs.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has fined Bellair, Fla.-based Scott Spencer and investment adviser Spencer International, of which he was formerly president, $75,000 each.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has accused Robert Mihailovich Sr., and Rockwall, Texas-based Growth Capital Management of fraudulent solicitation in connection with the trading of commodity futures contracts and leveraged foreign currency.