Search results

This paper seeks to describe the recent SEC Roundtable on Money Market Funds and Systemic Risk and the context behind the roundtable.

The paper discusses the SEC's roundtable on money market funds. Context to the roundtable is provided by describing recent steps taken by regulators to address risks posed by money funds. The paper also examines the principal topics discussed at the roundtable, including the debate on the systemic risks posed by money funds and potential regulatory changes that could mitigate those risks.

A number of regulatory proposals that were raised at the roundtable could, if adopted by the SEC, significantly alter the operation of money market funds as we know them, including requiring money market funds to institute market‐based net asset value (“NAV”) instead of stable NAV, be subject to banking regulations, create an industry‐funded private liquidity bank, or maintain liquidity reserve requirements.

The roundtable is significant as it is likely to influence the future discussion of the regulation of money market funds, which has potential implications for both the money management industry and entities financed by money market funds.

The paper provides information on money market reform for investment advisers, broker‐dealers, regulatory lawyers, institutional investors, and investment companies.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive background on the recent legislative, regulatory, and prosecutorial scrutiny of mutual funds and underlying issues such as the level and transparency of fees and costs, distribution and sales practices, and fund governance.

Provides a detailed chronology of events since January 2003 concerning mutual fund scandals such as trading abuses and questionable sales practices and related issues such as revenue sharing, directed brokerage, soft dollars, market timing, late trading, and selective disclosure. The chronology in this issue of JOIC will be followed an article in the next issue that describes reform initiatives that have taken place in response to the scandals.

Despite criticism and scrutiny of equity mutual funds following poor performance in 2001 and 2002, meaningful efforts to achieve reform began to lose momentum in mid‐2003. Then concern with mutual fund abuses was reignited in September 2003 when New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer announced a settlement with Canary Capital that involved market timing, late trading, and selective disclosure. Since then there have been numerous disclosures of fund trading abuses and questionable trading practices, and the resulting uproar has triggered significant efforts to reform the manner in which funds and their service providers conduct business.

This comprehensive chronology provides an essential reference by bringing together all the events and underlying issues related to mutual fund scandals, abuses, regulation, compliance, and reform efforts since January 1, 2003.

Valuation of portfolio securities continues to hold the limelight in the arena of mutual fund regulation. For the last four years, mutual fund regulators have repeatedly emphasized the need to adopt or revise procedures to address valuation issues that address modern market conditions resulting from such forces as globalization and the development of derivatives and other exotic securities.

To describe the broad range of reform initiatives that has been undertaken in response to a series of mutual fund scandals that have become apparent starting in 2003. This is the second of a two‐part article. The first part, in Volume 7, Number 1, is a chronology of developments related to the fund scandals since 1 January 2003.

Describes SEC reforms, including governance reforms; compliance reforms; SEC‐directed expanded disclosure regarding fund expenses and costs; reforms with respect to share distribution practices; reforms addressing market timing, selective disclosure, and fair value pricing; other reform initiatives including codes of ethics for investment advisers and a requirement that hedge fund advisers register with the SEC; an enhanced surveillance and inspection program for mutual funds; and enforcement activities. Describes private civil suits brought against fund companies, legislative proposals, the roles of NASD and New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, the development of “best practices” guides by industry groups, and measures being promoted by institutional investors.

A broad range of reform initiatives has been undertaken by the SEC; NASD; and the New York, Massachusetts, and California Attorneys General. Both the US House of Representatives and the Senate have held hearings and proposed legislation, which at the moment appears dormant. Independent directors of only one mutual fund have been implicated in the trading abuse scandals. Hundreds of private civil lawsuits have been brought by fund shareholders against fund groups but virtually none has resulted in substantial restitution to plaintiffs.

A detailed and comprehensive analysis of reform initiatives in response to mutual fund scandals since 2003.

The purpose of this paper is events and analysis of present a hedge fund collapse, offer lessons to investors and hedge fund industry stakeholders and propose a possible remedy for mitigating operational risks and associated potential losses.

This study focused on one hedge fund case study and conducted a thorough investigation of the events that led to the collapse and eventual filing of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) complaint. All articles and publications used for this research are available in the public domain and accessible.

Wood River Capital Management had concentrated the portfolios of its two hedge funds into one stock, EndWave Corp. Fund Manager violated terms of offering memorandum. Investors were not made aware of and did not discover the operational risks. Stock price of EndWave plummeted. There was no independent oversight over the funds. The values of the two funds dropped significantly. Investors attempted to redeem but the funds were not liquid. The SEC filed a complaint. Mr Whittier was sentenced for three years in jail.

It is an analysis of US-based hedge fund, not an empirical paper. The article presents critical analysis and offers many valuable lessons to hedge fund industry stakeholders.

This paper helps investors in terms of identifying a hedge fund’s operational risks and conducting more effective due diligence while vetting a hedge fund. This could potentially save investors and constituents billions of dollars, by avoiding potential hedge fund collapses. This paper suggests that the scope of fiduciary duty be expanded to cover hedge fund industry vendors.

Thorough research of a hedge fund that collapsed because of poor investment decisions, not self-enrichment at expense of fund investors. This paper provides lessons to investors in terms of identifying a hedge fund’s critical operational risks and conducting value preserving due diligence. This could potentially save hedge funds investors billions of dollars, by avoiding potential hedge fund collapses. This paper recommends that the scope of fiduciary duty be expanded to cover hedge fund industry vendors.

The body of literature in the field now commonly known as the “quality of working life” (QWL) has grown steadily over a period in which the industrialised nations have increasingly come to question the role and status of human beings in the modern technological environment. In recent years concern with the nature of work, its impact upon people, and their attitudes towards it, seem to have sharpened. Investigation of, and experimentation with, the qualitative aspects of working life—its ability to confer self‐fulfilment directly, for example, as opposed to being a means of acquiring goods—has gained momentum under the influence of a unique set of economic, social, political and technological factors. The outpouring of books, reports and articles from a wide variety of sources has, not surprisingly, grown apace.

Despite the appeal of studying successful organizations, valuable tools have also been developed by social scientists for understanding organizations that fail. This study applies one such tool − a model of stages of decline − to the case of the AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations), an organization that has arguably been in decline for decades. The AFL-CIO is an interesting case due to the lack of agreement among key constituencies about the appropriate criteria for measuring organizational performance. Reformers and conservatives have struggled over this issue, each viewing the conflict over performance criteria as crucial in determining who will ultimately control the organization. As the AFL-CIO has moved through successive stages of decline, struggle over the organizational mission has grown increasingly intense, finally leading to the exit of major constituencies. This study confirms the value of the concept of stages of decline, and underscores the role of internal politics, especially in a non-profit organization, in setting the criteria for evaluating performance.

This article presents an argument that the SEC, in its attempts to control corporate information disclosure, too often focuses on discrete bits of information as the driving source of investment determinations, and in doing so runs the danger of overlooking the fluid and constantly changing nature of the economy, information flow, and investors’ methods for assessing their risks and making investment decisions. The author questions whether the SEC provides value for money; and whether its greatest strength ‐ the channeling of information for the use of investors through an agreed process of corporate reports and public releases ‐ may be its greatest flaw and sometimes may lead it to focus on the wrong things.

This study investigates the origins and elaboration of the managerial “unitary” frame of reference associated with Alan Fox, focusing on unionised firms: the industrial relations context, intellectual roots, elaboration, adaptation by other writers, and international applicability.

Tracing the above requirements through contemporaneous sources.

Fox’s designation of the unitary frame needs to be understood in its 1960s’ context, particularly the promotion of “productivity bargaining”, and its furthering through management training and education. Fox’s specific contribution is identified. Subsequent UK writers have underplayed the importance of the legal dimension of managerial authority, especially relevant in the US context, while other extra-economic factors bolster the managerial unitary frame in authoritarian societies such as China.

The use of Fox's neglected 1960s’ writings; tracking how Fox developed the unitary frame concept and how it was funnelled into the narrow parameters of non-unionism by subsequent writers; identifying its applicability beyond the UK (with the USA as a historical example and China as a contemporary one).

Research is needed that uses large enough samples to facilitate disaggregation of users by specific types of complementary/alternative medical (CAM) practices and by ethnicity in order to examine possible patterns in the use of CAM therapies not accorded efficacy by family physicians. The objective of this study is too use data from a large population health survey to determine the relationship ethnicity, measured with multiple indicators, has with the use of CAM therapies classified as “accepted” or “rejected” by family physicians in terms of efficacy. Using data from the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) Cycle 1.1, logistic regression models estimate the factors influencing the use of the two binary categories of CAM therapy. Measures of ethnicity available in the CCHS are used to focus on ethnic origin, comparing North American and Foreign born, and on ethnic identification, comparing Whites with Asians, South Asians, Blacks, Latin Americans, Aboriginals, and others. Whites and North American born had higher odds of using “accepted” therapies, whereas immigrant visible minorities and those with Asian ethnic identities were more likely to use “rejected” therapies. This research confirms that ethnicity constitutes a cultural resource upon which users of CAM draw as they make their health-care decisions, sometimes despite the recommendations of family physicians.