The new Trump administration combined with a Republican-controlled House and Senate could usher in the most significant regulatory changes to the ETF industry since 1990. That year, the Republican-led U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) granted exemptive relief that gave birth to the ETF, one of the most consequential and innovative financial products in history.
Last week I took time to attend the N40 Digital Asset Summit which brought together industry leaders, innovators, and family offices to discuss the future of blockchain, digital assets, Web3, crypto and the role for AI in the space. The event was robust with fabulous panels and a wealth of information and insight. As US
Happy New Year to all and Welcome to Thompson Hine’s newest blog offered as a service to those in the investment management and broker-dealer communities.
What a better way to begin this blog then discussing the problems that arise for RIAs and BDs at this time of year. The first and most pressing for RIAs
The exam is finally over! If your advisory firm has been undergoing an SEC examination, you’ve probably been waiting a long time to utter those words. Well, time to get back to business, right? Not so fast. As our series on SEC examinations has detailed, this is a long process. And if your firm received
An onsite examination from the SEC can often feel like a surprise visit from your in-laws. You wish you had more time to clean up before they arrived, you know they’re judging you the whole time they’re there, and you can’t wait for the moment you get to say goodbye.
And, after what seems like
In our last episode Don’t Panic, Josh walked through how to respond to an initial examination letter, including a handy checklist of items that roboadvisors should always have in good order. But what if your existing practices don’t cover all the examination letter requests? Do not fret. No examiner is expecting perfection. More important
You open your inbox, ready to start your day, and what’s the first thing that greets you? A notice that you’re being examined from the SEC’s Division of Examinations (EXAMS), along with an initial request list for information. Time to panic? Of course not. Being examined by the SEC, and other regulatory authorities, is an
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,
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
You probably don’t need to be convinced that information security is critically important. But just in case you do, you should know that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) continues to emphasize the importance it places on information security. In our last two posts, Marc and Craig began our discussion of the SEC’s Division