Compliance Alert: New SEC Rules and Form ADV Update -

Preparing for the Effective Date

 Preparing for the Effective Date

New SEC requirements significantly expand public disclosures by registered investment advisers for their SMA businesses. The requirements take effect Oct 1, 2017. The SEC also confirmed provisions for "umbrella registration" of related advisers and generally overhauled many questions on Form ADV. There is time to act, but many to-do's follow from the new rules. Our webinar will cover practical tips for the coming compliance challenges.

 You can download a full copy of the slides from this webinar.

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Full video transcript available below:

So here we have what we are thinking of as the key components for how to go forward. Number one, educate senior management. It's obviously critical that senior management and client facing personnel know that new requirements are coming, and that at least they have a high level understanding of what they are and when they're going to go into effect. The second box, create a working group. Here, I think everyone in compliance understands that as you're developing your form 80 V and populating your form 80 V that process often sits with the compliance team, but they need information, and the information has to come from other groups in the organization. That's really what this is intended to say. Start reaching out now to those other pieces of the organijzation.

I'll also offer a practical tip. You're going to be going through your form 80 V update as you do every year at the end of this year. The rules aren't in effect yet, the new rules, so you're going to be using the same form 80 V that you've always used. I think it would be productive to have a shadow 80 V going in which you're considering how you will respond to the changes. Just have it as a side item. Ask yourself as you're going along, what's new, what would I be doing different if the form were in effect, and I think it will help you as you're preparing for next year. Pat, could you speak to the remainder of the slide?

Sure, I think clearly the investment advisor, for many reasons, will want to inform it's SMA clients in advance of the public disclosure requirement, and to coordinate with their clients to minimize surprises when client data is made public. Saving grace here is that disclosure will almost entirely be on an aggregated basis, and that the new reporting requirements will not take place until October. I would suggest, however, that it would make sense for investment advisors to be fairly well along in their preparation for SMA disclosure and have a very good idea of how they're going to present it as Nathan was just suggseting, before they reach out to their SMA clients, in the event that a number of random questions come in all at once asking exactly how they're going to do it. That's just a word to the wise.

Then, lastly, how can service providers assist? Service providers, depending on who they are may be able to help you with the information gathering process in an efficient and cost sensitive way, and that's something that you should really consider when you decide how to allocate responsibilities for these annual or biannual disclosure requirements.

Pat, thank you for that

 
This webinar was co-hosted with Shearman & Sterling LP. To learn more visit www.shearman.com
 
 
 

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