MyComplianceOffice Blog

If you’re in Compliance, you know the crucial role that the Chief Compliance Officer plays in helping to maintain integrity in the securities industry and preventing violations. CCOs’ jobs are challenging enough given the wide range of obstacles they face day to day without having to routinely worry about whether simply carrying out their responsibilities will subject them to personal liability.

The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has clearly set expectations to ensure that asset managers conduct their business with due skill, care and diligence and that they manage conflicts of interest, between the firm or its employees and its customers or between its customers, fairly. A European asset management firm was recently fined £9.1mn by the FCA for failure to adhere to these principles and effectively manage conflicts of interest.

Conduct risk issues including employee compliance, transaction surveillance and third party risk pose significant risk to financial services firms across the globe. MCO CEO Brian Fahey sat down with Robin Amlôt of IBS Intelligence to talk about what financial institutions can do to avoid conduct risk compliance pitfalls.

Have recent proposals foreshadowed a fundamental change to the regulation of private funds in the United States, including the alignment of private fund regulation with that of Registered Investment Companies (“RIC”) for retail distribution? According to Daryoush Niknejad, General Counsel of the Sanne Group, the proposed regulations of 2022 take a strong step in that very direction. 

The Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE) of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently published the Risk Alert Observations from Examinations of Investment Advisers Managing Private Funds. 

The Risk Alert covers three general areas of deficiencies that the OCIE has identified in examinations of private fund advisers: conflicts of interest, fees and expenses, and policies and procedures relating to material non-public information (MNPI). The alert outlines concerns and compliance issues observed during examinations of registered investment advisers that manage private equity funds or hedge funds—and serves notice that the SEC will continue to put a high priority on customer well-being.