An invaluable asset.
Whether you’re an SEC-registered investment advisory firm, an affiliate of a major bank in the asset management space, a trust company, or a fund shop, we can help you expand your product offerings and strengthen your company.
We regularly work with members of the investment management industry, fund service providers, those in need of regulatory guidance, and those dealing with SEC examinations or enforcement matters.
We advise investment management industry participants on all sides of regulatory and transactional matters.
Clients rely on us to advise them on compliance with regulatory and legislative developments, design compliance programs, seek exemptive and no-action relief, and navigate regulatory examinations and investigations. Clients also look to us to negotiate transactions, develop and launch new products, and to manage the day-to-day challenges of operating in a highly regulated, and sometimes volatile market.
Our attorneys offer counseling in transactional, regulatory, and compliance matters involving investment management industry participants including:
- Investment advisers
- Banks
- Mutual funds
- Hedge funds
- Exchange traded funds (ETFs)
- Private equity funds
- Independent fund directors (including audit committees, compliance committees, and QLCC)
- Fund management, CCOs, and SOX certifying officers
- Institutional investors
We also love collaborating with clients who want to create and bring to market novel and exciting funds and investment products.
We have extensive experience supporting fund service providers.
Our investment management attorneys have specialized knowledge of the legal and compliance issues confronting fund industry service providers, including:
- Fund administrators
- Fund accountants
- Transfer agents
- Custodians
- Securities lending agents
- Distributors
- Compliance professionals
- Independent auditors
- Technology vendors
Our attorneys have represented fund industry service providers in transactional matters, including complex global and domestic outsourcing deals, as well as mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, and business line spin-outs. We’re also experienced in counseling fund service providers on the unique regulatory and compliance issues presented by their business models, including in the context of regulatory examinations, investigations, and enforcement proceedings.
With deep, in-house regulatory experience, we know compliance every way to Sunday.
Today’s regulatory environment is challenging, to say the least. Regulators are focused on rooting out conflicts of interest, and there’s been a huge sea change in regulations that affect asset managers, as well as mutual funds, hedge funds and private equity funds.
Fortunately, we’re exceptionally prepared to help you navigate them. Many of our attorneys have spent portions of their careers at the SEC, FINRA, and NYSE, where they not only learned the ins and outs of the various regulations and policy matters, but also gained valuable insight into how regulators think. As a result of our firsthand experience, we can provide smarter, savvier, more efficient counsel on everything from product launches to fiduciary responsibilities and SEC examination and enforcement matters.
Whether you’re dealing with SEC examinations and enforcement or internal investigations, we’ll turn a strong defense into a great offense.
We offer proactive counseling, management, and defense in SEC examinations and enforcement matters and conduct independent internal investigations on behalf of boards of directors, various committees of boards, and management. We provide representation to corporate and individual clients in matters involving allegations of:
- Securities fraud
- Misleading or inadequate financial disclosure
- Internal control, accounting, and record-keeping deficiencies
- Auditor independence issues
- Insider trading
- Market manipulation
- Unregistered securities offerings
- Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations
- Improper broker-dealer practices (improper sales practices, customer protection rule violations, failure to supervise)
- Mutual fund sales practices
- Violations of the Investment Company Act of 1940 or the Investment Advisers Act of 1940
- “Aiding and abetting” liability
- Privacy law breaches (GLB, Reg. S-P, state privacy laws applicable to the securities industry)
We’ll help you uncover and tackle potential issues of misconduct within your organization.
Handled appropriately, internal investigations can help deter regulatory intervention and limit the organization’s exposure to lawsuits. Our asset management and securities team provides experienced guidance on, among other things, corporate compliance and governance issues related to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, SEC regulations, internal control and accounting issues, and whistleblower allegations. Our goal is to provide advice and solutions that enable our clients to protect their businesses and minimize risks.
But most importantly, we take pride in being great business partners.
When you work with us, you work directly with our partners—all of whom have worked in this industry a long time, and will be directly accessible on every engagement. In addition to providing counsel on asset management and securities, we genuinely enjoy using our industry contacts’ expertise to help our clients work through ancillary business challenges—like whether to insource or outsource parts of your back-office business.
But no matter what we collaborate on, you’ll find that we’re overwhelmingly practical in everything, from the way we work with regulators to the way we break down large, complicated projects. Our team’s pragmatism even extends to the way we bill: We’re more than happy to put together comprehensive fixed-fee budgets if that’s easier for you and your company.
AWARDS
We were nominated for “Legal Counsel of the Year” in the mutual fund industry, and one of our shareholders was named “Corporate & Securities Lawyer of the Year.”