Asset Management

We offer a broad range of legal services to registered and unregistered funds and advisers, working with clients in the United States and throughout the world from offices in Washington, DC, New York, and London.  We advise investment management firms on all aspects of their business and have high-end capability in regulatory matters, new product design, compliance audits, dispute resolution, and enforcement matters, among other areas.  Our asset management lawyers work closely with colleagues throughout the firm on investment products, particularly in the areas of tax, employee benefits, banking, commodities, derivatives and mergers and acquisitions. 

The group includes a prominent hedge fund and alternative investment practice, representing some of the highest-profile hedge fund managers, fund-of-fund managers and administrators.  In addition, we have extensive experience with other alternative investment structures, including bank collective trust funds, private equity funds and real estate and real estate-related funds.

The Asset Management Group represents domestic and international banks before federal and state regulatory agencies, including the Federal Reserve System and the New York State Banking Department.  We also advise our banking clients on a range of issues, including regulatory requirements relating to mergers and acquisitions, affiliate transactions and tying issues, permissibility of investments in or by financial entities, and capital adequacy requirements for various products and transactions.

Derivatives Team

Within the Asset Management Group is the Derivatives Team, which provides its diverse client base (consisting of domestic and foreign financial institutions, corporate end-users, and hedge funds clients) with product structuring, documentation and transaction execution assistance on a variety of derivative and structured products.  Our Derivatives Team is at the forefront of the novel use of derivatives in innovative structures across a broad range of products and asset classes, including equity, credit, foreign exchange, fixed income, and hedge funds.  These products involve complex regulatory issues and we provide clients with regulatory, risk management, and compliance counseling, particularly with respect to commodities, securities, banking, margin, broker-dealer, gaming and bucket shop laws and, along with attorneys in other Firm practice groups, with regard to tax, ERISA, UCC, and insolvency issues.  The Derivatives Team is often called upon to give legal opinions on novel structures and on legal and market regulation matters.

Commodities Regulation Team

Also resident in the Asset Management Group is the Commodities Regulation Team.  The Commodities Regulation Team counsels clients on a variety of regulatory, compliance and transactional issues implicated by the US Commodity Exchange Act ("CEA") including: advising with respect to the applicability of the CEA to OTC derivatives transactions and products and the availability of exemptions therefrom; advising exchange-traded futures market participants, such as futures commission merchants, commodity trading advisors, and commodity pool operators; and structuring collective investment vehicles such as hedge funds and commodity pools that desire to access the futures market. 

Additional examples of the legal services provided by the Asset Management Group includes:

• Assisting clients in the preparation, review and filing of fund registration statements, shareholder reports, proxy statements, other regulatory filings and correspondence with the SEC with respect to those filings.
  
  
• Counseling clients on those SEC, state and self regulatory organizations, inspection and enforcement matters, as well as representing registered and unregistered funds and advisers before the SEC and other US and non-US regulators, such as the UK's Financial Services Authority.
  
  
• Preparing and filing requests for interpretive, exemptive and no-action relief.
  
  
• Preparing and reviewing board meeting materials, such as agendas, minutes, investment advisory contract renewal materials, and memoranda.
  
  
• Advising on complex legal structures involving registered and unregistered funds, including master-feeder structures, funds of funds, fund investments in pooled investment vehicles to gain exposure to distinct asset classes, and novel class structures. 
  
  
• Assisting clients in the preparation of disclosure materials relating to unregistered funds, including offering memoranda, subscription documents, and marketing materials. 
  
  
• Counseling non-US broker-dealers and investment advisers on local markets or on entering the US market, often for the first time.