private equity fund

Agencies Publish Rule Excluding Community Banks from Volcker Rule

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On July 9, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Federal Reserve Board, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adopted a final rule that excludes community banks from the Volcker Rule, which restricts banking entities from engaging in proprietary trading and from owning, sponsoring or having certain relationships with hedge funds or private equity funds. Under the final rule that was adopted, community banks with $10 billion or less in total consolidated assets, and which have total trading assets and liabilities that are 5% or less than such community bank’s total consolidated assets, will be excluded from the Volcker Rule.

 

SEC Finds that Private Equity Fund Adviser Acted as Unregistered Broker

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On June 1, 2016, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) announced that a private equity fund advisory firm and its owner agreed to pay more than $3.1 million to settle charges that they engaged in brokerage activity, charged fees without registering as a broker-dealer and committed other securities law violations.

An SEC investigation found that Blackstreet Capital Management, LLC (“Blackstreet”) and its principal performed in-house brokerage services rather than using investment banks or broker-dealers to handle the acquisition and disposition of portfolio companies for a pair of advised private equity funds. Of particular interest is the SEC highlighted that “Blackstreet fully disclosed to its funds and their investors that it would provide brokerage services in exchange for a fee” and that the limited partnership agreements of the advised funds “expressly permitted” the adviser “to charge transaction or brokerage fees.”  However, this did not suffice.

In the press release announcing the Order, Andrew J. Ceresney, Director of the SEC Enforcement Division, emphasized that the rules are clear that “before a firm provides brokerage services and receives compensation in return, it must be properly registered within the regulatory framework that protects investors and informs our markets.”

Of note, the Order did not address whether or not Blackstreet offset transaction fees payable by the advised funds against its management fee. This is significant because in April 2013 the Chief Counsel of the SEC’s Division of Trading and Markets gave a speech in which he stated that “to the extent [a private equity fund] advisory fee is wholly reduced or offset by the amount of [a] transaction fee, one might view the fee as another way to pay the advisory fee, which, in my view, in itself would not appear to raise broker-dealer registration concerns.”  Since the Order does not disclose whether or not there was a fee offset in the case presented, it is unclear whether the current SEC staff holds the view expressed by the Chief Counsel in 2013.

 

FSOC Volcker Rule Study

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On January 18, the Financial Stability Oversight Council issued a study required by the Dodd-Frank Act entitled, “Study & Recommendations on Prohibitions on Proprietary Trading & Certain Relationships with Hedge Funds & Private Equity Funds”. The study recommends, among other things, that rulemaking agencies consider providing exceptions for certain funds that are within the Volcker Rule’s broad definition of “hedge fund” and “private equity fund”. FSOC Study.