Bernstein Shur Issues White Paper: How the Dodd-Frank Act Impacts Investment Advisers

Attorneys Scot Draeger and Caleb Dubois recently authored a white paper on how the Dodd-Frank Act impacts investment advisors.

The Dodd-Frank Act was signed into law on July 21, 2010 and implements changes that impact nearly every aspect of the financial services industry, including but not limited to:

• Affecting the oversight and supervision of financial institutions
• Creating a new agency responsible for implementing and enforcing compliance with consumer financial laws
• Introducing more stringent regulatory capital requirements
• Effecting significant changes in the securitization and derivatives markets
• Reforming the regulation of credit rating agencies
• Implementing changes to corporate governance and executive compensation practices
• Requiring the registration of advisers to certain private funds

When the act was first passed, many supporters suggested that tying up these loose ends would take approximately 12 to 18 months. However, as of the beginning of 2012, only 93 of the 400 rule-making requirements mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act have been finalized. Consequently, the full impact of the Dodd-Frank Act is still a long way from being realized. It is likely that many of the issues discussed in this summary will remain in a state of flux for several years to come.

Read the white paper on Dodd-Frank here.