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We study a sample of Form 13F filings where fund advisors seek confidential treatment for some, or all, of their 13(f)-reportable positions. Consistent with the hypothesis that managers seek confidentiality to protect proprietary information we find that confidential positions earn positive and significant abnormal returns over the post-filing confidential period. We also find that managers are more likely to seek confidential treatment of illiquid positions that are more susceptible to front-running. Overall, our analysis highlights important benefits of reduced disclosure that are relevant to the current policy debate on hedge fund transparency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent cases of hedge fund fraud have caused large losses for investors and have fueled the debate regarding the ability of regulators to oversee the industry. This article proposes a set of performance flags, based on suspicious patterns in returns, as indicators of a heightened risk of fraud. We collect a sample of hedge funds charged with legal or regulatory violations and find that funds charged with misappropriation, overvaluation, misrepresentation, or Ponzi schemes trigger the performance flags at a higher frequency than other funds. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We develop and apply a new and more rigorous methodology by which to measure and understand both informed trading and the agency costs of hedge fund activism. We use quantitative data to show a systematic relationship between the appointment of a hedge fund-nominated director to a corporate board and an increase in informed trading in that corporation's stock (with the relationship being most pronounced when the fund's slate of directors includes a hedge fund employee). This finding is important from two different perspectives. First, from a governance perspective, activist hedge funds represent a new and potent force in corporate governance. A robust debate continues as to whether activist funds reduce the agency costs of corporate governance, but this is the first attempt to investigate whether activist hedge funds also impose new agency costs through widened bid-ask spreads and informed trading. Second, although insider trading is almost universally condemned, it has only been studied in individual cases. Using instead a quantitative approach, we develop a tool that enables regulators (civil and criminal) to identify suspicious trading patterns: both to demonstrate such a pattern and to map these new agency costs, we assembled a data set of 475 settlement agreements, between target companies and activist funds relating to the appointment of fund-nominated directors, from 2000 to 2015, in order to focus on what happens once such a fund-nominated director goes on the board. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Influential scholars of corporate law have questioned previous federal interventions into corporate governance, calling it quackery. Invoking images of medical malpractice, these critiques have argued persuasively that Congress, in responding to crises, makes policy that disrupts efficient private rules and established state laws. This Article applies the Bootleggers and Baptists theory to show that Dodd-Frank's hedge fund rules are more than just negligent or reckless, but designed to benefit special interests that compete with the hedge fund model. Those rules offer no solutions to any real or perceived risks arising from hedge fund investing, but might offer an advantage to competitors of hedge funds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines hedge fund regulations in the U.S. and Europe and proposes ways for U.S. regulators to improve hedge fund valuation and increase investor protection. Topics covered include structure and major stakeholders involved in hedge funds, valuation process and its associated issues, recent regulatory changes in the U.S. affecting hedge funds such as Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 and ways to improve transparency and standardize the valuation process for hedge funds in the U.S.

We study the impact of Dead Hand Proxy Puts on shareholder value. Courts and commentators have characterized these terms as defenses against hedge fund activism that threaten to reduce firm value by entrenching underperforming managers and thereby increasing managerial agency costs. Our findings contradict this view. Using three court cases as a natural experiment, we find that shareholders do not react negatively to the inclusion of a Dead Hand Proxy Put in a firm's loan agreements. Not only do Dead Hand Proxy Puts not destroy firm value, they may even preserve it by deterring activists who would seek to extract wealth from creditors and other nonshareholder constituencies. We develop the policy implications of these findings and offer a direction for the evolution of legal doctrine in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As European, American and Asian investment banks continue to deal with the fallout of the worldwide credit and liquidity crunch, it is crucial to appreciate that a significant causal origin of the 2008 crisis was the management of the alternative financial sector and specifically, in the regulation of both domestic and offshore hedge funds. Although the industry has often been beneficial for the financial system, critics believe that these benefits have accrued at a cost. Significant 'systemic' risks that have plagued the domestic financial systems as a direct consequence of hedge funds operating both the credit and the market channel (largely on the basis of unlimited leverage), are domino leverage failure, asset price downward spirals and money laundering, among others. Naturally, the need to manage and regulate the industry, and more importantly, how to do so, has gained importance in industry dialogue. Through this paper, the authors seek to design an effective capital markets regulatory design for hedge funds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On February 10 and February 27, 2014, The Coalition for Affordable Drugs ("CFAD") filed petitions with the United States Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO") challenging the validity of two patents covering Ampyra, a prescription drug that improves multiple sclerosis patient's ability to walk. Acorda Therapeutics, which owns the two patents, watched its stock drop 9.7% on February 10 and 4.8% on February 27 in reaction to news of CFAD's patent challenges. The patent challenge and ensuing stock drop comprise the initial steps of a new investment strategy developed by hedge fund manager Kyle Bass. Mr. Bass created CFAD to search for potentially invalid patents and file petitions requesting the USPTO to reassess the validity of these patents in an administrative process called inter partes review ("IPR"). CFAD states it is targeting patents that lack social value. The USPTO should have never issued the targeted patents in the first place because the patents fail to disclose anything novel and accomplish little more than keeping drug prices artificially high. However, CFAD's motives for challenging drug patents are not purely altruistic. It stands to make a profit by shorting the shares of companies holding the challenged patents and taking a long position on the shares of companies who stand to benefit from the challenged patent s invalidation. Opponents accuse CFAD of exploiting loopholes in the patent system and manipulating financial markets primarily for profit at the expense of biotechnological innovation. Critics urge the USPTO and Congress to amend laws or introduce new laws to prevent CFAD and other financial opportunists from challenging patents. This Comment uncovers the merits of the biotechnology sector and CFAD's arguments, ultimately concluding that Congress should not create any legal barriers that would prevent hedge funds from challenging the validity of biotechnology patents. It is important for third parties who represent the interests of the public domain to have an opportunity to participate in the discussion over a patent's validity--even in instances where public interests are subordinated by personal motives. By allowing third parties who represent the public interest to challenge patents, Congress prevents biotechnology companies and their direct competitors from entrenching the patent system with patent owner's interests without any balancing consideration for public domain interests. Instead, Congress should introduce legislation that prevents partie's financial motives from abusing IPR's settlement provisions. Even third parties motivated primarily by personal gain can serve an important "ecological role" in maintaining the integrity of the U.S. patent system, ensuring invalid patents do not slip through the cracks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2008 financial crisis sparked a flurry of regulatory activity and enforcement in an attempt to reign in activity by banks, but other institutions have also been identified as potentially threatening to the stability of the financial markets. In particular, several empirical studies have revealed that systemic risk can be created and transmitted by hedge funds. In response to the risk created by hedge funds, Congress granted the Financial Stability Oversight Council ("FSOC") authority under the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 to designate hedge funds as Systemically Important Financial Institutions ("SIFIs"). Such a designation would automatically result in stringent capital constraints and limitations on liquidity risk on these non-bank institutions. Yet in over six years since FSOC has been granted this authority, it has failed to identify even one hedge fund as a SIFI. In the face of massive resistance and deregulatory initiatives introduced under the Trump administration, it is highly unlikely to do so in the near future. The inability of FSOC to regulate systemically harmful funds is particularly troubling because several post-financial crisis studies have revealed that systemic risk can still be created and transmitted by hedge funds. Given FSOC's inability to close this hedge fund loophole, this Article argues that Congress should explore appointing the SEC as the primary regulator of hedge funds because: (1) hedge funds can still pose a systemic threat to the economy; (2) the transparency framework inherent in the federal securities laws can supply a more effective means for mitigating systemic risk than the prudential framework currently mandated for SIFIs; and (3) appointing the SEC in this regard would reduce the fragmentation of the current regulatory structure which has been extended and complicated by the creation of FSOC. Although the federal securities laws are typically used to promote investor protection, this Article posits that enhancing transparency to hedge fund counterparties and investors can decrease systemic risk by empowering such market participants to better protect themselves against risk. Enhancing protection in this manner could in-turn weed out systemically harmful funds from the marketplace, without imposing the severe capital constraints that would be mandated under FSOC's model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Article attempts to define hedge funds and to distinguish them from a variety of similar investment funds. After reviewing the hedge fund definition in the U.S. and the EU, this Article argues that the current regulatory framework, which defines hedge funds by reference to what they are not rather than to what they are, is prone to regulatory arbitrage. Even in the presence of a statutory definition, due to the ineluctable indeterminacy of language and regulatory arbitrage problems, borderline issues will persist, which makes statutory definitions of hedge funds neither possible nor desirable. Therefore, regulators should avoid the temptation of proposing such statutory definitions. Instead, they should rely on regulatory discretion within a broad principles-based regulatory framework to do so. For such a principles-based regulatory regime to work, regulators should rely on a functional definition of hedge funds. Accordingly, this Article defines hedge funds as privately organized investment vehicles with a specific fee structure, not widely available to the public, aimed at generating absolute returns irrespective of market movements (Alpha) through active trading and making use of a variety of trading strategies. This functional definition is likely to help address regulatory problems that might originate from statutory definitions of hedge funds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Note traces the government's effort to balance the need for investments with the need for regulating the economy. Regulations of the financial industry, largely in response to economic crises such as the Great Depression and the 2008 recession, have focused on limiting investments deemed too risky for the general public to "sophisticated" investors. Struggling to define "sophisticated," Congress and the SEC opted for criteria based on the investor's net worth with narrow exceptions for highly knowledgeable but lower-net-worth individuals. Recent legislation and interpretation of that legislation have expanded these narrow exceptions, suggesting the trend is moving towards investor eligibility criteria based on sophistication measures beyond net-worth. This change is a positive one for investors, businesses, and the economy as a whole. However, the benefits of the current efforts to expand the definition of "sophisticated" cannot be realized because legislative incentives for investment managers continue to limit investment opportunities to only the very rich without regard for knowledge or expertise. This Note proposes that Congress should expand the Qualified Purchaser standard under the Investment Company Act of 1940 to allow sophisticated but lower-net-worth individuals to invest in hedge funds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The long-term effects of hedge fund activism are controversial. Some empirical studies document that activism is associated with increased long-term firm value, suggesting that activists can better discipline management. Other studies, however, challenge these results, arguing that the incorporation of possible selection effects exposes activism as detrimental to long-term firm value. This Article contributes to this ongoing debate, producing novel empirical evidence on the relationship between activist campaigns, the financial value of firms, key governance arrangements, and corporate legal rules. We first document qualitative evidence that untargeted “control” firms sharing similar characteristics to targeted firms perform better in the long term than the target firms, and then show that hedge fund activism is associated with increased risk-taking but has no significant impact on managerial incentives. These combined findings provide support for the view that the substantial private gains hedge funds realize through activism come at the expense of long-term firm value, rather than from increased managerial accountability. Consistent with these results, we further show that defensive mechanisms matter for deterring hedge fund activism only as long as they provide an effective higher-level constraint to protect a firm’s commitment to long-term value creation, such as when they are premised on shareholder consent or embedded in a managerial-friendly legal environment. This would explain why staggered boards and incorporation in states with more anti-takeover statutes can deter future activist interventions, while the poison pill, surprisingly, does not. The Article concludes with recommendations to enhance the deterrent effect of current defensive mechanisms against short-term hedge fund activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Section 13(d) of the Williams Act requires all persons and groups that acquire 5 percent or more of an issuer's outstanding stock to disclose their holdings to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Whether a group is formed under section 13(d) often is unclear. The legal precedent is ambiguous; courts give more weight to certain forms of circumstantial evidence than others without explaining why. With the substantial increase of hedge fund activism--in particular, the wolf pack tactic--further clarity or uniformity is necessary. A "wolf pack" is a loose association of hedge funds that employs parallel activist strategies toward a target corporation while intentionally avoiding group status under section 13(d). Rather than develop a new rule, courts should apply the antitrust conspiracy framework from section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The antitrust precedent identifies conscious parallelism and plus factors as evidence of price-fixing conspiracies. It is based on statutory language, and courts are familiar with the precedent, largely because the case law is similar to section 13(d) law. This Note provides a survey of the modern section 13(d) group formation landscape and addresses certain forms of circumstantial evidence that apply to the wolf pack strategy. This Note then advocates that courts should apply the antitrust precedent to section 13(d) as a two-part solution: first by utilizing conscious parallelism and second by considering novel plus factors. Finally, this Note suggests plus factors that would be useful in identifying when wolf packs form 13(d) groups while avoiding overpunishing those wolf packs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academics have frequently noted that the term "public" is one of the most undertheorized concepts under our federal securities laws. It has never been sufficiently defined by Congress, and issuers must instead rely on various indicators of publicness gleaned from an extensive patchwork of rules and exemptions. A prevalent indicator of publicness includes the status of investors, where investment companies that broadly offer investments to the general public, such as mutual funds and money-market funds, are required to register under a complex web of federal legislation. Relatedly, private investment companies such as hedge funds and private equity funds, which restrict offerings to elite investors, are typically considered private and are thus exempt from federal regulation. Other historical indicators include advertising, size of pool, and number of investors/clients. However, these historical indicators of publicness did not capture the increasing effect that private funds were having on the general public, such as systemic risk, retailization, and participation in the shadow banking industry. Congress responded by expanding indicators of publicness through the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (Dodd-Frank Act), which created new registration requirements for private funds irrespective of the status of such underlying investors. Nevertheless, this article argues that Congress has improperly focused on ancillary laws, such as the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 and the Commodity Exchange Act of 1936, to integrate evolving notions of publicness in the regulation of investment companies. Congress should instead focus on the Investment Company Act of 1940 (1940 Act), which is the primary legislation tailored to the industry. In focusing on these ancillary laws, Congress has complicated the patchwork of regulation that applies to these entities. This improper focus has also resulted in under-inclusive and overinclusive indicators of publicness under the 1940 Act, further compromising investor protection in these burgeoning markets. An alternative framework should: (1) integrate emerging indicators of publicness under the 1940 Act; (2) conduct a wholesale review of the 1940 Act; and (3) monitor other strategies that could invoke public concerns such as hedge fund activism, third-party litigation funding, and investment in distressed economies such as Detroit, Puerto Rico, and Greece. This article builds on the current literature which has largely focused on the incoherency of publicness in the context of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. This article is the first to assess whether emerging notions of publicness have been properly incorporated under the 1940 Act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the impact of hedge fund activism on corporate governance in the U.S. It views hedge funds as the natural leaders of shareholders simultaneously as short-term predators. Topics discussed include activist hedge funds; impact of the U.S. Security Exchange Commission's (SEC) rules on activism decline; and impact of this hedge fund activism on investment horizons and discouraging investment in research and development.

This Note examines the split among the federal circuit courts regarding the application of agency principles to claims of foreign sovereign immunity. Specifically, a minority of courts have applied the doctrine of apparent authority in determining whether a sovereign is bound by the acts of its agents. The majority of courts have, however, declined to apply the doctrine, holding that only actual authority is sufficient to bind sovereigns to their agents' acts. This Note examines the policy ramifications of the minority view through the lens of sovereign debt litigation, especially those conducted by so-called vulture funds, and ultimately concludes that the minority view should be explicitly disregarded via congressional revision of the statutory scheme governing claims of foreign sovereign immunity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a critical appraisal of the way in which the EU regulates hedge funds (HFs) in the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFM Directive) and its proposal to regulate the repo markets from which they obtain much of their leverage. It argues that the EU's scheme is not a radical departure from the pre-crisis market liberalist approach and that its reliance on discretionary intervention is misplaced because it does not take account of the fundamental uncertainty that characterises financial markets. The article outlines the operations of HFs and explores the extent to which they pose a threat to systemic stability, paying particular attention to the use of leverage by HFs. It explores the background to the AIFM Directive and the post-crisis international consensus on financial regulation and then evaluates the complex division of responsibility for regulating HFs between the national and supranational authorities. Finally, it discusses how HFs should be regulated. Drawing on the work of Minsky, it argues that a leverage cap would have been more likely to prevent HFs contributing to systemic instability than the scheme adopted. Nor are the proposed rules on mandatory 'haircuts' in repo markets or the AIFM Directive's rules on remuneration likely to prevent HFs contributing to systemic instability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a new approach to understanding the underpinnings and the role of hedge fund activism. Topics include legal parameters for each activist stage and examination of why the incidence, objectives, and strategies of activist hedge fund campaigns differ across countries, the findings showing that the extent to which legal parameters matter depended on the stage that hedge fund activism has reached, and the impact of shareholders disclosure rules on trading stage.

The purpose of this paper is to suggest a regulatory model by which Canadian securities regulators may monitor the systemic risk contributed to by the Canadian hedge fund industry. The bases for this model are recent regulatory reform initiatives adopted in the U.S. and Europe. There, securities regulators have adopted Form PF and AIFMD, respectively, to monitor the systemic risk contributed to by hedge funds. However, the features of those regimes are not necessarily appropriate for the Canadian industry. The appropriateness of the features of Form PF and AIFMD for the Canadian hedge fund industry is evaluated on two criteria: the average industry fund size, and the cost of regulatory compliance. This paper identifies three features of Form PF and AIFMD that are appropriate for the Canadian hedge fund industry: a minimum size exemption, uniform reporting depth, and extensive data sharing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the processes of negotiating and documenting hedge fund derivatives as of July 2014, focusing on global regulatory initiatives involving hedge funds, as well as information about European Union (EU) laws and the "Volcker Rule" requirements under the U.S. Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act 2010. American securities laws, restrictions on hedge fund investments and holdings, and the EU's Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive are examined.

The article focuses on the negotiation and documentation of hedge fund derivatives in 2014. Topics include the regulations regarding over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives, the classification of hedge funds, and the non-directional strategies involving investment profits. Information is provided on basis risk.

The article focuses on the need of law enforcement by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for cross-border cooperation in the prosecution of translational hedge fund fraud. Topics discussed include explore ways that promote international cooperation in analyzing enforcement actions regarding hedge funds and managers, international cooperation in investigating and prosecuting securities fraud, and memoranda of understanding (MOUs).

This Article offers a broad theory of what distinguishes investment funds from ordinary companies, with ramifications for how these funds are understood and regulated. The central claim is that investment funds (i.e., mutual funds, hedge funds, private equity funds, and their cousins) are distinguished not by the assets they hold, but by their unique organizational structures, which separate investment assets and management assets into different entities with different owners. In this structure, the investments belong to "funds," while the management assets belong to "management companies." This structure benefits investors in the funds in a rather paradoxical way: it restricts their rights to control their managers and to share in their managers' profits and liabilities. The fund investors accept these restrictions because certain features common to most investment funds make these restrictions efficient. Those features include powerful investor exit rights that substitute for control rights and economies of scope and scale that encourage managers to operate multiple funds at the same time. This understanding illuminates a number of key areas of contracting and regulation and refutes the claims of skeptics who say that fund investors would be better off if they employed their managers directly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the importance of hedge funds in the reorganization of the bankrupt corporations. Topics discussed include role of hedge funds in achieving the goals of Chapter 11 of United States Bankruptcy Code, rehabilitation of debtors and for maximizing the valuation of the stocks for all the stockholders. It further discusses various positive aspects of hedge funds in regulating issues related to bankruptcy.

The article focuses on the importance of the systemic risk disclosures in bankruptcy under Dodd-Frank Act and implications of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Topics discussed include laws for the regulation of hedge funds, role of Federal Bankruptcy Rule 2019 in the scholarly debate for financial regulations and public disclosure of systemic risk filings. It further discusses role of hedge fund industry in the regulation of distressed securities.

The article focuses on various obstacles and issues faced by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the liquidation of hedge funds. Topics discussed include needs of liquidating hedge funds for meeting out with bankruptcy, lawsuits filed against the fund managers for fraud or breaches of fiduciary duty and laws made for regulating the Ponzi Schemes. It further discusses the aspects related to the violation of the fiduciary provisions of the Advisers Act.

The article focuses on the importance of hedge funds in meeting up with the requirements for overcoming the problems related to bankruptcy. Topics discussed include role of hedge funds in the bankruptcy process, access to the nonpublic information and proposals of various bankruptcy related reforms. It further informs about the academic discourse on bankruptcy law and policy.

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various topics related to the laws for bankruptcy and hedge funds.

The article identifies the key characteristics of offensive shareholder activism. Topics discussed include offensive shareholder activism; defensive interventions of institutional shareholders; rise of hedge fund activism in Canada; levels of offensive shareholder activism in a jurisdiction; and corporate governance tactic as deployed by hedge funds.

The article proposes a conceptual framework related to development in corporate governance. Topics discussed include shareholder primacy approach to directors' duties; duty of directors to balance the competing interests of various stakeholders; and the Supreme Court of Canada in 'BCE Inc. v 1976 Debentureholders.'

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is currently considering a rulemaking petition requesting that the Commission shorten the ten-day window, established by Section 13(d) of the Williams Act, within which investors must publicly disclose purchases of a five percent or greater stake in public companies. In this Article, we provide the first systematic empirical evidence on these disclosures and find that several of the petition's factual premises are not consistent with the evidence. Our analysis is based on about 2,000 filings by activist hedge funds during the period of 1994-2007. We find that the data are inconsistent with the petition's key claim that changes in market practices and technologies have operated over time to increase the magnitude of pre-disclosure accumulations, making existing rules "obsolete" and therefore requiring the petition's proposed "modernization." The median stake that these investors disclose in their 13(d) filings has remained stable throughout the 17-year period that we study, and regression analysis does not identify changes over time in the stake disclosed by investors. We also find that: * A substantial majority of 13(d) filings are actually made by investors other than activist hedge funds, and these investors often use a substantial part of the ten-day window before disclosing their stake. * A significant proportion of poison pills have low thresholds of 15% or less, so that management can use 13(d) disclosures to adopt low-trigger pills to prevent any further stock accumulations by activists--a fact that any tightening of the SEC's rules in this area should take into account. * Even when activists wait the full ten days to disclose their stakes, their purchases seem to be disproportionately concentrated on the day they cross the threshold and the next day; thus, the practical difference in pre-disclosure accumulations between the existing regime and the rules in jurisdictions with shorter disclosure windows is likely much smaller than the petition assumes. * About ten percent of 13(d) filings seem to be made after the ten-day window has [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on recently enacted Puerto Rican legislation and its implications for U.S.-based hedge fund and private equity managers, who otherwise face very high taxes on their offshore carried interest, which up till now had enjoyed favorable rates and tax deferral. The addition of Section 457A to the tax code has effectively ended a long era of deferred tax recognition of carried interest in investment managers' offshore funds. But with careful planning, a combination of an F reorganization and a move to a tropical island could help such fund managers find a new tax paradise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper studies the 'confidential holdings' of institutional investors, especially hedge funds, where the quarter-end equity holdings are disclosed with a delay through amendments to Form 13F and are usually excluded from the standard databases. Funds managing large risky portfolios with nonconventional strategies seek confidentiality more frequently. Stocks in these holdings are disproportionately associated with information-sensitive events or share characteristics indicating greater information asymmetry. Confidential holdings exhibit superior performance up to 12 months, and tend to take longer to build. Together the evidence supports private information and the associated price impact as the dominant motives for confidentiality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the issue of hedge fund registration and the tension between regulators and the hedge fund industry regarding the appropriate level of regulatory oversight. Topics include the legal requirements in the Dodd-Frank Act, attempts to register hedge funds, and the methodological approach of the survey study.

The article discusses various reasons why U.S. hedge fund advisers should be required to register with the American government as of January 2013, focusing on an analysis of Luke R. Ashworth II's article "Is Hedge Fund Adviser Registration Necessary to Accomplish the Goals of the Dodd-Frank Act's Title TV?" which appears in the same issue of the "Washington & Lee Law Review." The author argues that the U.S. Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform & Consumer Protection Act mandates the collection of data.

The article presents a review of the article "Is Hedge Fund Adviser Registration Necessary To Accomplish the Goals of the Dodd-Frank Act's Title IV?" by Luke R. Ashworth II which appears in the same issue of the "Washington & Lee Law Review." Several hedge fund-related crises are addressed, including a 2007 incident involving funds from the financial services firm Bear Stearns. A report from the U.S. Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission is mentioned, along with Ponzi schemes and hedge fund laws.

The article discusses the U.S. government's apparent lack of direct regulation of hedge funds as of January 2013, focusing on Title IV of the nation's Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and a call for the establishment of a hedge fund adviser registration program. It states that Title IV (Private Fund Investment Advisers Registration Act of 2010) requires certain hedge fund advisers to register with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

This article attempts to elucidate how European regulations currently being put in place will modify the fund management industry. It is based on an online questionnaire that was sent to professionals within the fund management industry (UCITS and alternative asset managers, their service providers, external observers, and investors).There are 437 respondents to the survey, reporting assets under management of more than €13 trillion. Regulatory constraints on institutional investors play a large role in the way funds are structured. Pension funds, the institutional investors subject to the fewest quantitative restrictions, are five times less likely, all else equal, than the average survey respondent to ask for hedge funds strategies to be restructured as UCITS. Investment regulations being enforced by the European Commission fail to provide incentives for hedge funds to be structured as AIFMD-regulated alternatives and instead create incentives for them to be structured as sophisticated UCITS called NewCITS. Only UCITS, after all, benefit from a distribution passport. These regulations could thus lead to a wave of NewCITS rather than to hedge funds that comply with the AIFM directive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forward contracts allow buyers and sellers of goods to reduce risk by contracting for sale at a predetermined price and quantity prior to the actual exchange of goods and payment. While forward contracts are extensively used in the Western world without restriction, those who adhere to Islamic law are often constrained by principles intended to reduce risk, gambling, and usury. These principles can prove overly restrictive; however, Islamic law restrictions also illuminate the problems associated with the overly permissive Western system in which speculators contract in a manner tantamount to gambling--a problem associated with the recent financial crisis. This Note discusses forward contracts representing risk-hedging and pure speculation and then addresses the principles of Islamic law that affect these financial instruments. The Note next explains the forward contracts that are permissible under Islamic law and poses two questions: (1) How important are the motives of the parties involved in the contract? (2) Is there something that the requirements of Islamic law can teach those who do not subscribe to the religion? These questions are answered and conclusions are drawn concerning the permissibility of hedger-hedger forward contracts under Islamic law and whether Islamic law is overly restrictive in its treatment of these, concluding that no reasonable interpretation of Islamic law could deem a purely speculative forward contract as permissible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) and its response to the Global Financial Crisis of the early 21st century, including information on IOSCO's revised objectives and principles in terms of the prevention of systemic risk. The regulation of hedge funds, credit rating agencies, and the short selling of securities is also addressed.

The present article seeks to introduce the recent US and EU legislation dealing with the regulation of alternative investment vehicles, focusing on hedge funds in particular. It begins by briefly introducing the operation of hedge funds and their key characteristics. It then goes on to outline the recent US and EU legislation seeking to regulate, among others, hedge funds, and then attempts a critical evaluation of such regulation by taking into account its intended purpose, the mechanics of hedge funds and the recent financial crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the treatment of the hedge funds through the federal income tax in the U.S. The hedge funds depend upon the classes of investors that includes the taxable investors, foreign investors and tax-exempt investors in the U.S. Information on the jurisdictions regarding the treatment of the hedge funds by the federal income tax purposes is also presented.

A conference paper about regulation of hedge funds in the European Union (EU) is presented. It discusses the pros and cons of regulating hedge funds through direct or indirect regulation and concludes that the regulation should focus on managing the systemic risks associated with hedge funds. It also addresses issues related risk management under the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD).

The article focuses on developments made in trans-atlantic hedge fund regulation and examines whether the U.S. and European Union (EU) have achieved their respective goals of forming an effective financial reform measures that address hedge fund activity and its impact on the financial markets. It describes the structure of hedge funds and presents a comparative analysis of the U.S. Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and EU Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive.