January 15, 2025 – Global Investment Law Watch

Europe: Proposed UK and EU Rules on More Research Cost Re-Bundling Move Closer

Jan 15 2025

By: Phillip Morgan, Andrew Massey, and Raghu Meena

In the United Kingdom, the FCA has proposed to give fund managers (including UCITS Mancos and full-scope UK AIFMs) an option to use fund assets to pay jointly for execution and research (so-called ‘bundled’ payments). The existing options of paying for research from manager funds or operating a customer-financed research payment account would remain. Final rules are expected in the first half of 2025. This follows the introduction on 1 August 2024 of a similar option for separate account managers as discussed here.

“Oops, I was a Broker!?” SEC Cracks Down on Investment Adviser Representatives Acting as Unregistered Brokers

Jan 15 2025

By Richard Kerr, Pablo Man, Jessica Cohn, and Sydney Faehling

On 14 January 2025, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced settled charges against three investment adviser representatives for acting as unregistered brokers in the sale of membership interests in certain limited liability companies (i.e., Funds) that each purportedly owned shares of private issuers that had prospects of becoming publicly traded. The SEC separately announced settled charges against an advisory firm in a related action involving improperly managing conflicts of interests and the use of liability waivers.

Archive:January 15, 2025