Mutual Fund Minute

In this episode of the Mutual Fund Minute, Sidley partner Jay Baris and Eric Pan, President and CEO of the Investment Company Institute, celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first American mutual fund. Eric shares his views on topics, including the SEC’s regulatory agenda, the role of AI in asset management, and ideas to modernize the Investment Company Act of 1940. Part 2 of 2 episodes.

In this episode of the Mutual Fund Minute, Sidley partner Jay Baris and Eric Pan, President and CEO of the Investment Company Institute, celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first American mutual fund. Eric shares his views on the challenges that funds, independent directors, and investors face in the current regulatory environment. Part 1 of 2 episodes.

In this episode of Mutual Fund Minute, host and Sidley partner, Jay Baris, and Leonard Ng, head of Sidley's UK/EU Financial Services Regulatory group, discuss fund regulation in the United Kingdom and the European Union in a post-Brexit world.

SEC Commissioner Hester M. Peirce sat down with Sidley partner Jay Baris to share her views on a wide range of topics concerning mutual funds and investment management. In this episode of the Mutual Fund Minute, Commissioner Peirce discusses the SEC’s proposed safeguarding rule, the Supreme Court’s Howey test, CCO liability and the future of crypto regulation, regulation of non-bank financial institutions, and the future of SEC regulation, among other issues. You can listen to the first part here: A Chat With Commissioner Peirce, Part I.

SEC Commissioner Hester M. Peirce met with Sidley partner Jay Baris in Washington, D.C. to share her views on a wide range of topics concerning mutual funds and investment management. In this episode of the Mutual Fund Minute, Commissioner Peirce discusses the SEC’s approval of 11 exchange-traded products that will trade in bitcoin, the SEC’s regulatory agenda, proposed rules regulating predictive data analytics, and the overall fast pace of rulemaking.

Are you now a securities dealer? The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) blurred the distinction between who is an investor or mere trader and who is a “dealer” for purposes of the Federal Securities Laws when it adopted final rules on February 6, 2024, defining activities that require someone to register as a “dealer” or a “government securities dealer.” By a 3-to-2 vote, the SEC approved rules that would require anyone that engages in a “regular pattern of buying and selling securities” that has the effect of providing liquidity to other market participants to register as a dealer under the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934. These new rules likely will require certain private funds, and other institutional investors, to register as dealers and comply with all the regulation that follows. In this episode of the Mutual Fund Minute, Sidley partners Jay Baris and Charles Sommers discuss what these new rules will mean and why they are significant.

A divided U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission cautiously heralded a new crypto era, on January 10, 2024, when it approved by a 3 to 2 vote multiple exchange-traded products that invest directly in bitcoin for listing and trading. To get to this point, the Commission followed a long and rocky road. While the Commission’s approval was a cause for celebration in crypto world, and, of course, with bitcoin funds in waiting, it also left many people wondering why this took so long, while others said that the SEC’s approval could sacrifice investor protection. In this episode of the Mutual Fund Minute, host and Sidley partner Jay Baris discusses the process that led up to this milestone and what it means for investors.

On Halloween 2023, the U.S. Department of Labor spooked the investment adviser world when it proposed rules that would redefine who is a fiduciary when someone provides investment advice for purposes of the Employee Retirement Income Securities Act of 1974 (ERISA). If adopted as proposed, these rules would greatly expand the categories of investment advice that would be subject to ERISA’s fiduciary standards. In this episode of the Mutual Fund Minute, host and Sidley partner Jay Baris, and Beth Dickstein, a Chicago-based partner in Sidley’s Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation practice, look at how these new rules would affect investment advisers and investors.

The Financial Stability Board, or FSB, is laser-focused on money market funds, mutual funds, and private funds. Specifically, the FSB is concerned that leverage in these funds and other so-called nonbank financial institutions could lead to market volatility, and, worse, could destabilize the global financial system. In this episode of the Mutual Fund Minute, host and Sidley partner Jay Baris is joined by Joel Feinberg, co-leader of Sidley’s Banking and Financial Services practice, head of the firm’s Financial Institutions group in Washington D.C., and a member of the firm’s Executive Committee. Together, they discuss what this means for U.S. funds and U.S. investors.

Why me? And why now? That is usually the first thing an investment adviser asks when the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Examinations comes knocking on the door. Understanding why the SEC chooses advisers for examinations at any given time could help the adviser better prepare for the inevitable. In this episode of the Mutual Fund Minute, host and Sidley partner Jay Baris speaks with Ranah Esmaili, Sidley partner and a member of the firm’s global Securities Enforcement and Regulatory practice. Together they discuss how the Division of Examinations determines which advisers to examine and the scope of those examinations.

Naming a registered investment company will become more challenging now that the Securities and Exchange Commission has significantly broadened the scope of the rule governing fund names. Moreover, the SEC estimates that when the Names Rule goes into effect, three out of four registered funds will be subject to the new requirements. In this episode of the Mutual Fund Minute, host and Sidley partner Jay Baris follows up on his first segment, '"What's in a Name." Jay and Louisa Kiu, Investment Funds counsel in Sidley’s Boston office, discuss the new and expanded Names Rule, and what it means for funds, advisers, and fund directors.

Federal regulators propose to make it easier to designate a nonbank financial company as a systemically important financial institution that could threaten the financial stability of the economy if it were to fail. In this episode of the Mutual Fund Minute, host and Sidley partner Jay Baris speaks with Joel Feinberg – co-leader of Sidley’s Banking and Financial Services practice, head of the firm’s Financial Institutions group in Washington, D.C., and a member of the firm’s Executive Committee. Together, they look at how and why nonbank financial companies, including potentially mutual funds, ETFs and private funds, would be subject to regulation by the Federal Reserve.

The recent collapse of several high-profile banks has amplified concerns among money managers and fund directors about counterparty risk. What should advisers and fund directors know about counterparty risk? How can they identify and manage the potential pitfalls, while simultaneously satisfying their oversight responsibilities? In this episode of the Mutual Fund Minute, host and Sidley partner Jay Baris speaks with Liz Schubert — global co-chair of Sidley’s Derivatives industry group and the founding member of Sidley’s Buy Side Derivatives practice — about the five best steps advisers and funds can take to mitigate counterparty risk, and what fund directors should consider.

Money market funds dodged a bullet when the SEC declined to impose swing pricing when it adopted final reform rules on July 12, 2023. Listen here as Sidley’s Jay Baris and Doug McCormack discuss the new money market reform rules, including the mandatory liquidity fee and how they affect funds, investors, and fund directors.

In this episode of Mutual Fund Minute, Sidley partners Jay Baris and Benson Cohen discuss the SEC’s proposed rules to address conflicts of interest when broker-dealers and investment advisers use predictive data analytics.

Tune into Mutual Fund Minute, as Jay Baris, a partner in Sidley’s Investment Funds group, looks at the growing interest in index-based investing by mutual funds and ETFs that has prompted the SEC to ask whether they should regulate index providers and other service providers as investment advisers. This episode looks at the implications for funds and investment advisers if they were go down this regulatory route.

Listen here as Jay Baris and Nathan Howell, partners in Sidley’s Investment Funds group, unravel the regulatory mysteries of how mutual funds, ETFs, and registered closed-end funds can invest in commodity futures contracts, subject to the jurisdiction by both the SEC and the CFTC.

Can a chatbot write a fund prospectus? Listen here as Jay Baris and Nathan Greene, partners in Sidley’s Investment Funds group, discuss how funds and investment advisers will use artificial intelligence, and how fund directors and investment managers can evaluate and understand the potential benefits – and challenges – that AI presents.

Listen here as Investment Funds partner Jay Baris and Ranah Esmaili, a partner in Sidley's Securities Enforcement and Regulatory practice, discuss the sweeping rules proposed by the SEC that would require funds and investment advisers to disclose more specific information about investment companies, private funds, and SMAs pursuing ESG investment strategies.

The SEC proposed rules for best execution of securities trades by broker dealers. In this Mutual Fund Minute, Sidley's Jay Baris talks with fellow partner Hardy Callcott about how the rule would apply to best execution of fixed income securities, and what it would mean for funds and advisers.