Advertising Compliance Series: Five High-Risk Areas for a Fund Manager to Focus on When Reviewing Marketing Materials (Part Two of Three)

The chief compliance officer of a small fund manager is likely the individual responsible for reviewing and approving all advertisements, while a larger adviser may employ a team of individuals dedicated to this function. In either case, mere familiarity with the applicable rules is not enough to ensure that the reviewer will identify content that poses risks from a regulatory perspective. Rather, an effective compliance reviewer must understand all aspects of the adviser’s business, its investment strategies and instruments traded, as well as possess a general understanding of how the markets operate. Certain categories of content, because of the very nature of the information being presented, pose greater risks from a regulatory perspective and thus warrant special attention by compliance officers. This second article in our three-part series discusses five of these high-risk areas, provides guidance to compliance officers on what to look for when encountering high-risk content and suggests ways for presenting this information that meet the needs of both the business-development and compliance teams. The first article in the series outlined what documents fall within the advertisement definition and described ten best practices that managers should consider implementing when designing or evaluating their advertising review procedures. The third article will explore six different testing mechanisms firms can employ to verify compliance with their advertising procedures. See “Ten Key Risks Facing Private Fund Managers in 2017” (Apr. 6, 2017); and “K&L Gates Partners Outline Six Compliance Requirements and Four Enforcement Themes for Private Fund Advisers (Part Three of Three)” (Jan. 8, 2015).

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