The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is at the center of an increasing chorus of market professionals who complain that investors are at the mercy of a system that caters to exchange specialists. While structural change may be necessary to address the NYSE’s governance issues, talk about...

The corollary between the issues facing both major league baseball and its balance of power and Wall Street’s current trials and tribulations around specialist models, compensation, and governance is telling. Both require a scorecard as well as historical and political perspective. The...

On September 29, 2003, the staff (“Staff”) of the Division of Investment Management of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) issued a report to the SEC entitled the “Implications of the Growth of Hedge Funds” (the “Report”). The Report recommends amending Rule...

The following is an overview of how the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as amended (“ERISA”), applies to securities professionals such as registered investment advisers (“RIAs”) and registered broker‐dealers who advise, manage, or trade for investment portfolios of...

Certain institutional trading operations executives of major broker‐dealers currently are indicating that there is a paucity of guidance from regulators and others on the potential characteristics of anti‐money‐laundering activities in their specific business areas. Because of requirements...

What exactly is the best execution duty of investment advisers? There is no clear consistent definition relied upon by regulators and courts and it has assumed different forms in different cases with different facts. Nevertheless everyone understands that it is an integral part of the fiduciary...

The simplest way to think about compliance is: “tell me what I have to do to satisfy the basic requirements.” Compliance would be done “by the book” when the right piece of documentation is created, reviewed, and carefully filed. Indeed, this seems consistent with the definition found in...

In this time of heightened regulatory attention to potential conflicts of interest and the transparency of transaction costs in buying and selling portfolio securities, soft dollar practices have come under intense scrutiny. Regulators are asking whether the use of soft dollars should be...

The SEC has proposed several rules and rule amendments that, if adopted, would impact market structure of the equities markets for years to come. This article summarizes those proposed changes and describes some of the early reaction to them by both industry and regulators. Regulation NMS, as...