July 2021

So you’ve built your robo-adviser, registered it, hired and licensed personnel, implemented a compliance program, conducted a successful marketing campaign, and (finally) gotten to do what you’ve really wanted to do the whole time – advise clients and manage portfolios.  Startup woes seem a thing of the past, and your operation is running smoothly.

Then,

target

For nearly a decade now, regulators have placed the Chief Compliance Officer (“CCO”) squarely within the sights of enforcement, on the logic that holding CCO’s individually liable for violations would prompt robust compliance programs, and deter lackluster supervision. The reasonableness of such assumptions is a topic for a different post.  However, despite these drastically raised the stakes