SEC Enforcement

As reported today, Vice President Harris has announced Tim Walz, the sitting governor of Minnesota, as her running mate. This announcement is particularly significant for investment advisers due to the Advisers Act Political Contributions Rule, otherwise known as the “pay-to-play” rule.

Read the full post on The Capital Commitment blog.

On June 28, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling overturning “Chevron deference,” a tool for interpreting ambiguous statutes administered by administrative agencies.  The 40-year-old Chevron doctrine held that, where a court finds a statute to be silent or ambiguous on a particular matter, the court must defer to the relevant agency’s construction of the statute if that construction is “permissible.”  The Supreme Court’s decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo now rejects any such deference to the agency and requires courts to apply their own construction of the silent or ambiguous law, even if the agency’s contrary view is reasonable and “permissible.”

On June 14, 2024, the SEC announced an enforcement action settlement with a Pennsylvania-based hedge fund manager for violating the Marketing Rule under the Investment Advisers Act. The SEC found that the adviser had misled investors by advertising a hedge fund’s investment performance based on the investment performance of a single investor in the fund. …

As we reach the midpoint of 2024, the SEC’s enforcement actions continue to shape the private funds industry. From the continuing off-channel recordkeeping sweep to heightened scrutiny on AI claims, fiduciary obligations of fund managers, and insider trading, the SEC is as vigilant as ever. Compounding these efforts are significant variables, such as the upcoming…

The SEC’s recent settlement involving a “pay-to-play” rule violation by a private equity firm is a timely reminder for fund managers, especially with the November elections approaching. 

As a refresher, Rule 206(4)-5 of the Investment Advisers Act – known as the “pay to play” rule – prohibits investment advisers from receiving compensation for providing advisory…

Proskauer’s Practical Guide to the Regulation of Hedge Fund Trading Activities offers a concise, easy-to-read overview of the trading issues and questions we commonly encounter when advising hedge funds and their managers. It is written not only for lawyers, but also for investment professionals, support staff and others interested in gaining a quick understanding of the recurring trading issues we tackle for clients, along with the solutions and analyses we have developed over our decades-long representation of hedge funds and their managers.

Yesterday, the SEC voluntarily stayed its new ESG disclosure rules for public companies pending the outcome of several lawsuits that have been filed, which are now consolidated in the 8th Circuit US Court of Appeals. We blogged earlier about the emergence of several lawsuits filed in different federal circuits. What does this mean? We believe that it means that the SEC wanted to avoid the delay that could result from extensive briefing on a potential court injunction staying the effectiveness of the rules, and move immediately to the merits, in hopes of resolving the litigation a reasonable period before the first effective date for many companies to begin compliance for their 2025 fiscal years. If the SEC prevails and the matter is resolved on a speedy basis, then the SEC has a chance to move forward with the rules on its original schedule, but the odds of that seem 50-50 at best. 

Proskauer’s Practical Guide to the Regulation of Hedge Fund Trading Activities offers a concise, easy-to-read overview of the trading issues and questions we commonly encounter when advising hedge funds and their managers. It is written not only for lawyers, but also for investment professionals, support staff and others interested in gaining a quick understanding of the recurring trading issues we tackle for clients, along with the solutions and analyses we have developed over our decades-long representation of hedge funds and their managers.

Multiple legal challenges have already been launched against the SEC’s new climate change disclosure rules. Plaintiffs include Attorneys General from several states, a large business trade organization and a private energy company. To date, these suits span across six different federal courts, and the array of these challenges is expected to trigger a lottery process in which one court would handle a consolidated case addressing all the claims.