The Finance Industry This Week

Welcome to Friday!?

Before you go racing off into the weekend I wanted to share a few things that happened this week to keep you up to date with all things SEC and compliance and the happenings in the My RIA Lawyer office.?

Our Friday updates are designed to give you an overview of what is going on in the finance world and how this could affect your business.

3 Industry News Stories

1. The SEC has announced the adoption of amendments to Regulation S-P to modernize and enhance the rules that govern the treatment of consumers’ nonpublic personal information by certain financial institutions. The amendments require covered institutions to develop, implement, and maintain written policies and procedures for an incident response program that is reasonably designed to detect, respond to, and recover from unauthorized access to or use of customer information. The amendments also require that the response program include procedures for, with certain limited exceptions, covered institutions to provide notice to individuals whose sensitive customer information was or is reasonably likely to have been accessed or used without authorization. The amendments update the rules’ requirements for broker-dealers (including funding portals), investment companies, registered investment advisers, and transfer agents (collectively, “covered institutions”) to address the expanded use of technology and corresponding risks that have emerged since the Commission originally adopted Regulation S-P in 2000. If you’d like to find out more about the amendments you can go HERE.?
2. The SEC has provided relief to certain registrants affected by the permanent suspension of BF Borgers CPA PC and its owner, Benjamin F. Borgers (together, “BF Borgers”), from appearing and practicing before the Commission as an accountant. It is expected that registrants that previously retained BF Borgers will need to engage a new, qualified, independent, PCAOB-registered public accountant to audit or review the financial information included in their Commission filings.The Commission’s order provides an additional period of time for the filing of quarterly and transition reports on Form 10-Q for issuers that have filed a timely Form 12b-25 notifying the Commission of their inability to file a report on a timely basis. To find out more information and if this relief affects your firm you should view the full release HERE.?
3. The SEC has charged Gibsonia, PA resident Frank T. Poerio, Jr. with insider trading for misappropriating material, nonpublic information concerning Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc. and trading on that information, realizing illegal profits of more than $800,000. According to the SEC’s complaint, between November 2019 and May 2021, Poerio knew a Dick’s employee who had access to multiple internal sources of material nonpublic information about the company’s financial results. The SEC alleges that Poerio frequently asked the employee for updates on the company’s performance, and, at times, the employee responded with statements to the effect that the company was “doing very well,” coupled with requests that Poerio not trade in Dick’s securities. You can find out more information about this case HERE.?

To find out more about any of these individual cases we strongly recommend you check out the SEC’s website.?

2 Things that happened in My RIA Lawyer office!

1. Last week I had the opportunity to head to Washington for the annual conference hosted by FINRA. By attending conferences like these I’m able to make sure that me and my team are kept up to date with what’s going on in the industry and also catch up with clients and other industry professionals. While I have a few more conferences I will be attending in the coming months I’d also love to hear which industry events you are excited for this year and which ones you’ll be attending. Who knows I might see you there!?
2. Make the most of the warmer months and get your compliance sorted before the SEC announces new examinations in October. Mock examinations help you prepare in advance and fix up any deficiencies before you receive a nasty letter on your desk. Our team is able to arrange these for you and more as part of our Outsource Compliance Department services. Find out more by sending us a message with “MOCK EXAM”.

1 To-do

With the FTC set to ban non-competes effective from September this year, one thing that should be on your to-do list is to review your employee contracts. They may require updates, or re-signing by your employees to keep them up to date and enforceable. If you want to know more about the upcoming changes and how these could affect your business, reach out to our team today and see how our legal experts can help you amend current contracts or draft up one's for the future. In the meantime there is some great information about the changes which you can find here.?

Have a great weekend, {FIRSTNAME}!?

Leila.