Search results

The article alerts investment companies and insurers of important SEC staff interpretive guidance regarding reliance on industry-standard exemptive relief.

Current industry practices and the SEC staff’s guidance are summarized, followed by a brief discussion of the potential implications to insurance companies and investment companies.

The SEC staff recognizes that the current approach to mixed and shared funding may be outdated, with the result that insurance companies and investment companies may be able to reduce compliance and regulatory burdens.

It is still too soon to gauge industry reaction, but insurance companies and investment companies should monitor industry practices relating to mixed and shared funding to determine whether they need to obtain and comply with industry-standard exemptive relief.

The SEC staff clearly recognizes that insurance companies issuing variable insurance contracts, and the funds that serve as their underlying investments, may be able to reduce compliance monitoring burdens and simplify their operations.

As part of an ongoing and potentially far‐reaching overhaul of investment company and investment adviser regulation, the Securities and Exchange Commission recently adopted Rule 206 (4)‐7 under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 and Rule 38a‐1 under the Investment Company Act of 1940. These new rules require each fund and adviser to implement written compliance policies and procedures and to appoint a chief compliance officer (CCO) to administer those policies and procedures. While funds and advisers have until October 5, 2004 to comply with the new rules, the breadth of those rules requires a concerted, early effort to implement the new requirements successfully by that date. This article summarizes the requirements of the new rules, focusing on the CCO requirement, and addresses the following issues that advisers and fund boards will confront (among many others) in recruiting and appointing a CCO: (i) the source of the CCO’s compensation, (ii) potential supervisory liability of a CCO, (iii) outsourcing the position of CCO, and (iv) the desired qualifications of a CCO.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the implications of an SEC Risk Alert and two FINRA regulatory notices concerning the use of social media by registered investment advisers.

The paper analyzes the SEC Office of Compliance and Inspections National Examination Risk Alert dated January 4, 2012, including general observations and factors for investment advisors to consider such as usage guidelines, content standards, policies for representatives and solicitors, monitoring procedures and third‐party content and testimonials. It discusses FINRA's detailed, bright‐line guidance in Regulatory Notice 11‐39 (August 2011) and Regulatory Notice 10‐06 (January 2010).

The paper recommends ways for investment advisers to address the use of social media.

Until more concrete guidance and market practice has emerged, firms may benefit from taking a conservative approach by limiting the use of social media and the ability of non‐firm personnel to “like” or post content to the firm's social media website, and by retaining all records of social media interactions in case of examinations.

The paper presents analysis and practical guidance from experienced financial services lawyers.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has defined “soft dollar” practices as arrangements under which products or services, other than execution of securities transactions, are obtained by an investment adviser from or through a broker‐dealer in exchange for the direction by the adviser of client brokerage transactions to the broker‐dealer. In the wake of the mutual fund scandals of 2003, soft dollar practices have come under increased scrutiny by the SEC, the U.S. Congress, and others. This article is based on testimony presented by the Investment Counsel Association of America (ICAA) to the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs at a hearing on soft dollars held on March 31, 2004. The article outlines the following positions: (1) the SEC should ensure that there is adequate disclosure about soft dollar practices, combined with appropriate inspection and enforcement of regulations governing such practices; (2) the consequences of abolishing soft dollars ‐ an outcome that would require Congressional action ‐ most likely would affect smaller investment advisory firms adversely, create entry barriers for new investment advisory firms, and diminish the quality and availability of proprietary and third‐party research; (3) investment advisers should be required to keep appropriate records relating to soft dollar arrangements and to develop and implement internal controls and procedures designed to ensure that soft dollar arrangements are supervised, controlled, and monitored; and (4) eliminating the use of soft dollars for third‐party research would harm investors, diminish the availability of quality research, provide a regulatory‐driven advantage for full‐service brokerage firms, disadvantage third‐party research providers, and result in less transparency to investors, regulators, and market participants.

The Howard Shuttering Contractors case throws considerable light on the importance which the tribunals attach to warnings before dismissing an employee. In this case the tribunal took great pains to interpret the intention of the parties to the different site agreements, and it came to the conclusion that the agreed procedure was not followed. One other matter, which must be particularly noted by employers, is that where a final warning is required, this final warning must be “a warning”, and not the actual dismissal. So that where, for example, three warnings are to be given, the third must be a “warning”. It is after the employee has misconducted himself thereafter that the employer may dismiss.

The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.

Research has shown that for young adults, marital attitudes (e.g., desire, importance, and expectation) are associated with relationship quality. However, how this association plays out for young adults of color is less known. Additionally, the influence of skin tone perception on the relationship between marital attitudes and relationship quality remains understudied. To explore these associations, the authors examined African American and Latinx young adults (N = 57, M_age = 20.71 years, SD = 1.28; 75.4% female) attending a Midwestern university. Exploratory results indicated that marital expectations were positively associated with relationship quality in that young adults who expected to marry one day, reported greater relationship satisfaction, commitment, and intimacy in their current relationships. Additionally, skin tone perception moderated the association between marital attitudes and relationship quality in two ways (i.e., between expectations and satisfaction and between importance and intimacy). Collectively, findings suggest that differing levels of marital attitudes and skin tone perception contributes to young adults’ perceptions of relationship quality. Considering these psychological factors of attitudes, skin tone perception, and relationship quality, together with systemic racial/ethnic discrimination, the authors discuss future research and practice considerations.

It is now forty years since there appeared H. R. Plomer's first volume Dictionary of the booksellers and printers who were at work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1641 to 1667. This has been followed by additional Bibliographical Society publications covering similarly the years up to 1775. From the short sketches given in this series, indicating changes of imprint and type of work undertaken, scholars working with English books issued before the closing years of the eighteenth century have had great assistance in dating the undated and in determining the colour and calibre of any work before it is consulted.

Despite long-term, sustained research and industry practice, predicting construction labour productivity (CLP) using existing factor and activity modelling approaches remains a challenge. The purpose of this paper is to first demonstrate the limited usefulness of activity models and then to propose a system model approach that integrates factor and activity models for better prediction of CLP.

The system model parameters – comprising factors and practices – and work sampling proportions (WSPs) were identified from literature. Field data were collected from 11 projects over a span of 29 months. Activity models based on the relationship between CLP and WSPs were created, and their validity was tested using regression analysis for eight activities in the concreting, electrical and shutdown categories. The proposed system model was developed for concreting activity using the key influencing parameters in conjunction with WSPs.

The results of the regression analysis indicate that WSPs, like direct work, are not significantly correlated to CLP and fail to explain its variance. Evaluation of the system model approach for the concreting activity showed improved CLP prediction as compared to existing approaches.

The system model was tested for concreting activity using data collected from six projects; however, further investigation into the model’s accuracy and efficacy using data collected from other labour-intensive activities is suggested.

This research establishes the role of WSPs in CLP modelling, and develops a system modelling approach to assist researchers and practitioners in the analysis of productivity-influencing parameters together with WSPs.

Since the first Volume of this Bibliography there has been an explosion of literature in all the main areas of business. The researcher and librarian have to be able to uncover specific articles devoted to certain topics. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume III, in addition to the annotated list of articles as the two previous volumes, contains further features to help the reader. Each entry within has been indexed according to the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus and thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid information retrieval. Each article has its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. The first Volume of the Bibliography covered seven journals published by MCB University Press. This Volume now indexes 25 journals, indicating the greater depth, coverage and expansion of the subject areas concerned.