DFPI Warns Of Investment Adviser Identity Theft

The internet facilitates crime in the same way it facilitates legitimate business - it lowers transaction costs.  With the internet, a fraudster can steal someone's identity and then use that purloined identity to reach thousands of potential...

DFPI BDIA Examinations Continue To Decline

The California Department of Financial Protection & Innovation's Broker-Dealer/Investment Adviser (BDIA) program licenses and regulates investment advisers, investment adviser representatives, broker-dealers, and broker-dealer agents.   Over the...

Does California's New Consumer Financial Protection Law Apply To SEC Registered Investment Advisers?

As has been previously noted, California's Governor recently signed  AB 1864 (2020 Cal. Stats. Ch. 157) into law (aka the "California Consumer Financial Protection Law").  Broadly speaking, this new law will bestow new regulatory authority on the...

DBO Initiates Coordinated Examination Survey Of Investment Advisers

Last week, the California Department of Business Oversight emailed a "Formal Examination Demand: Response Required" to investment advisers stating that the Department is conducting a "coordinated survey of registered firms and their business...

A Dozen Securities Law Professors Stake Absolutist Position On Adviser Duties

I teach securities regulation at the University of California, Irvine and so have a toe hold in academia.  In my view, law schools are placed on the "isthmus of a middle state".  As such, they must continually wrestle with the question of whether...

Implied Private Right Of Action And The Corporate Securities Law of 1968

Section 25235 of the California Corporations Code declares that is unlawful for an investment adviser to engage in a number of specified activities, including employing "any device, scheme, or artifice to defraud any client or prospective client". ...

DBO Reports Increase In Adviser Examinations

The California Department of Business Oversight recently issued its annual Broker-Dealer/Investment Adviser report for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2017.  The DBO reports that it had 3,808 investment adviser firms licensed at year end.  These...

Attention Investment Advisers: Rules Are Not Statutes

Last week, I cautioned the students in my Securities Regulation class that while it can be helpful to review the SEC filings of other registrants, one should never assume that they are correct.  A few days later, I noticed that the following...

Does A Political Yard Sign Really Violate The Investment Advisers Act?

"Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech . . . ."

1 2