Dodd-Frank’s whistleblower provisions may be more effective than originally anticipated, but will they lead to increased corporate compliance?

Opponents of the whistleblower rules believe the rules are more likely to inhibit compliance procedures than to improve them. The generous Whistleblower provisions have also raised concerns about the already overcommitted SEC being overwhelmed by frivolous claims by employees who view the program as a lottery with multi-million dollar payouts.

Read this complete analysis of the impact at AdvisorFX (sign up for a free trial subscription with full access to all of the planning libraries and client presentations if you are not already a subscriber).

For previous coverage of Dodd-Frank updates in Advisor’s Journal, see Is Barney Frank’s Resolve to Implement Dodd-Frank Weakening? (CC 11-95).

Do small- to medium-sized advisors represent a threat to the systemic integrity of the worldwide financial system? Probably not, but you’d think so based on the flood of advisor regulations flowing out of Washington.

The Dodd-Frank compliance maze expanded again last week as the SEC commissioners voted unanimously to release proposed reporting requirements that will complicate the compliance landscape for many advisors. Although affected advisors are not among the largest advisors overseen by the SEC, they are nevertheless categorized by the Commission as large enough to represent a systemic threat warranting increased SEC attention.

And while the SEC has assured affected advisors that their proprietary trading strategies won’t become part of the public record, recent events like the Wikileaks private banking releases should spook advisors.  Read this complete analysis of the impact at AdvisorFX (sign up for a free trial subscription with full access to all of the planning libraries and client presentations if you are not already a subscriber).

For previous coverage of recent SEC rulemaking activity in Advisor’s Journal, see SEC’s Plain English Requirement Equals Expensive Client Disclosures(CC 10-44) and SEC Approves FINRA Suitability and Know-Your-Customer Rules (CC 11-17).

The SEC has finally released its Dodd-Frank mandated study on enhancing registered investment adviser (RIA) examinations, but the study is more a tale of SEC budgetary distress than a concrete plan to improve examinations. Although the study hints at the regulatory framework that is likely to emerge for RIAs in the coming months, it doesn’t conclude with a definitive solution to the problem. Although the study does not conclude with a specific plan for improving adviser examinations, the scope of the RIA examination problem and the funding problems revealed make it clear that change is coming for RIAs—change likely to be paid for by increased user fees.

Read this complete analysis of the impact at AdvisorFX (sign up for a free trial subscription with full access to all of the planning libraries and client presentations if you are not already a subscriber).

Despite Congress’s best efforts after the recent economic meltdown, a cadre of Wall Street’s biggest banks still dominates the derivatives markets, leaving some observers wondering whether the transparency the Act was supposed to bring was just a well-intentioned but overly optimistic dream.

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act (Act) gave the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) extensive new authority over participants in the derivatives and swaps markets. But the transparency and equity many hoped the Act would bring to the markets is bottlenecked in the agencies charged with implementing the legislation.

The CFTC was scheduled to consider conflict of interest rules for swap execution facilities, derivatives clearing organizations and designated contract markets at their January 13, 2011 meeting, but disagreement about the scope of the rules resulted in the items being nixed from consideration at the meeting.

Read this complete analysis of the impact at AdvisorFX (sign up for a free trial subscription with full access to all of the planning libraries and client presentations if you are not already a subscriber).

For previous coverage of the Dodd-Frank Act in Advisor’s Journal, see Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (CC 10-35) and Wall Street Reform Act Mandates Study of Financial Planning Industry (CC 10-73).