As the 2023 fiscal year gets off to a running start, asset management firms face increasingly acute ramifications of risky data management practices. News sources continue to pump out weekly articles headlining immense fines and reputation hits due to compliance issues within some of the most well-known firms.

Compliance professionals often get cast into the perpetual role of “bad guys” as they serve as primary, detail-centric rule enforcers on trades. As they shut down trade requests based on potential rule violations, they come under constant peer pressure to come up with exceptions or accommodations. They feel both the social and professional pressure to compromise, but they need to do so in a way that does not leaves their team feeling vulnerable to potential firm liability.

The rising trend of ESG-focused investing has led to a large increase in funds being marketed as such. Upon closer inspection, however, many of these so called "ESG" funds prove not as friendly to the ESG cause as they claim. In recent years, a London-based climate change think tank, InfluenceMap, accused the majority of these funds of overstating their sustainability claims, a phenomenon known as "greenwashing." Even the former CIO for sustainable investing at BlackRock Inc., Tariq Fancy, stated that "sustainable investing boils down to little more than marketing hype, PR spin and disingenuous promises from the investment community (see here for more details).”

Pending amendments to Rule 22c-1 of the Investment Co. Act of 1940 (CFR Citation: 270.22c-1) would create a new hard close policy as the SEC plans to impose swing pricing. Getting to the heart of the proposed amendment means wading through complex documentation and given the potentially big impact of this proposed change I am diving in to help outline the upcoming changes.