Regulation

Global multi-asset manager AXA Investment Managers, the fund arm of French insurer AXA, has joined the growing ranks of large buyside firms that will underwrite the costs of research once Europe’s MiFID II rules go into effect in January 2018, instead of passing them on to clients. 

Boutique asset manager Unigestion has opted to pay investment research costs on behalf of its clients once the EU’s MiFID II regulations come into effect this January, joining an increasing number of buyside companies preferring to absorb the new fees instead of passing them on to clients. 

In an August 18 letter to President Trump, famed activist investor Carl Icahn stepped down from his role as an informal regulatory policy advisor to President Donald Trump ahead of a New Yorker article focused on whether his ownership of heavily regulated companies, such as oil refiner CVR Energy, presented a conflict of interest.

Well-known alternatives law firm Seward & Kissel has debuted a new suite of full-scale integrated compliance services for asset managers that provides comprehensive and cost-efficient assistance with the onerous task of complying with regulatory obligations.

More than eight out of ten institutional asset managers will wait until the fourth quarter of 2017 to comply with MiFID II rules concerning the unbundling of research, according to a new survey by research aggregator RSRCHXchange.

With the January 2018 deadline for MiFID II implementation only six months away, alternative asset managers are still uncertain about how the new regulations will impact them and more than a third have yet to decide how they will be paying for research, according to a new survey from AIMA.

Adele RentschU.S. investment managers need to think seriously about how tough new U.K. conduct rules for senior staff could affect their employees in the United States, explain AIMA's Adele Rentsch and Michelle Noyes in this contributed article, and take the appropriate steps now to understand who among their senior executives might be impacted.

In a largely symbolic move, the U.S. House of Representatives voted on Thursday to reverse key portions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform And Consumer Protection Act, delivering on one of the Republican Party’s core platform promises during last year’s presidential election.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is reportedly going to hire Ropes & Gray LLP attorney Dalia Blass to lead the regulator’s Division of Investment Management, the unit responsible for regulating mutual funds, private equity companies, ETFs, hedge funds and registered investment advisors. 

Global institutional brokerage company Instinet has rolled out a new provider-neutral application within its Plazma research and commission management platform that will allow investment managers to review, edit and confirm assessment information about research and seamlessly authorize payments.