Hedge Fund Lobby: Breaching Ethics

In a rule adopted by the SEC on October 26, 2011, hedge funds over a certain size must report information—the amounts required depending on the fund’s size. The devil, as it were, is in the details. In this case, they reflect the intense lobbying of hedge funds and their advocates. As a result of the lobbying, according to The New York Times, the “changes call for only the largest funds to report the most detailed information, eliminate any penalty of perjury for misleading reports and delay for six months the initial reports for all but the largest funds.”[1] Whereas the matter of the amount (and type) of information required involves or potentially puts at risk the funds’ secret strategic competitive advantages and the matter of a start date involves technical points such as how much effort is needed to cull the required information, the elimination of any penalty for perjury does not correspond to any legitimate business concern. Indeed, it makes on sense to require information if it can be misleading with impunity. It is as if the SEC regulators had told the hedge funds, You will have to submit information to us but it can be misleading. The fund managers would be apt to reply, Oh, ok.


The full essay is in Cases of Unethical Business, available in print and as an ebook at Amazon.com.  

1. Edward Wyatt, “Rule Allows Regulators a Look at Hedge Funds,” The New York Times, October 27, 2011.