27/01/2010
Author: Elana Margulies
Does the SEC's new unit mean business?
After much talk, the SEC has finally taken the very real step of establishing a unit dedicated to asset management, with special dispensation to ‘police’ hedge funds. Of course, this
isn’t the first time the SEC has taken a shot across the bows of the industry, so is anything likely to be different this time around?
The unit is part of the SEC’s first major effort to shake up its enforcement division since it was created 40 years ago. As is so often the case with the SEC, little else is known about the
new unit outside the names of the men charged with its enforcement, Bruce Karpati and Robert Kaplan.
The Commission’s plans fall neatly in line with president Obama’s crackdown on banks’ links to hedge funds announced last week (see news analysis, p15). And it comes a month on
from the US House of Representatives ruling requiring hedge fund managers of a certain investment minimum to register with the SEC.
Craig Weynand, managing director of NuWave Investment Management, does not view the SEC’s new asset management unit as overly burdensome, just yet, since there are still unanswered questions
about how it will be structured and what types of crimes it will police.
“Only time will tell,” he said. “Regulation, if it is done in a prudent way, should be embraced by the industry because it will promote investor confidence which is a benefit to
all of us.”
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