Key takeaways

• The staff of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (“OCIE”) has published a Risk Alert on the five compliance issues they most frequently identify as deficiencies in investment adviser examinations.
• These five key topics, mostly addressing rules under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, are adherence to (i) the compliance rule, (ii) regulatory filing requirements, (iii) the custody rule, (iv) the code of ethics rule, and (v) the books and records rule.
• Investment advisers, whether or not they have been examined, should engage in thorough reviews of their compliance policies and practices and prepare for these to be focal points of future OCIE examinations.