Lawrence Kamin counsels clients in the formation and registration requirements of broker-dealers, RIAs, CTAs, futures introducing brokers, FCMs, CPOs, proprietary trading firms, electronic traders, market makers, and other financial firms, such as private equity and hedge fund advisers.
Regulators in the complex and heavily regulated financial services industry have little tolerance for a firm that has failed to tailor filings to its specific business practices or has adopted a “one size fits all” compliance manual or written supervisory procedures. Notwithstanding this risk, compliance consultants regularly sell “turn-key” registration documents and “shrink-wrapped” compliance programs that do not fit a firm’s actual operations. When compliance consultants do tweak their proposed documentation to the firm’s specific operations, the firm loses the attorney-client privilege that would apply if a qualified regulatory attorney proposed similar amendments.
Lawrence Kamin’s regulatory team understands the nuanced and overlapping regulatory landscape of federal, state, self-regulatory, and exchange rules. Our attorneys provide sophisticated and customized regulatory and compliance legal counsel to a broad cross-section of the financial service community. We have decades of experience shepherding clients through the complex formation and registration process. We regularly design internal systems and controls, and prepare tailored ADVs, written supervisory procedures, codes of ethics, insider trading policies, business continuity plans, privacy notices and procedures, client agreements, and other documents necessary to form, register, and operate registered investment advisers, broker-dealers, futures commission merchants, commodity trading advisers, and other registrants.
Our representation starts with a legal and compliance consultation so that we can understand how the client’s business actually operates and how the firm’s compliance program and written procedures need to be customized to fit the client’s unique operations. Whether a client is setting up a compliance program for the first time, or revising an existing compliance program, we can customize the compliance program so that it works with the client’s actual business goals.
Lawrence Kamin similarly counsels financial firms through reorganizations and ownership transition, including mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures.
