A recent study shows that compliance officers are stressed out these days. Unfortunately, this stress level is about to go even higher for compliance officers at investment firms if the SEC follows through on a recent decision that such compliance officers may themselves be sued as “supervisors.”

via Stressed-Out Compliance Officers May Soon Feel Even More Heat From SEC – Compliance Week.

“It’s going to be a big deal for the hedge funds,” Rob Kelner, a Washington, D.C.-based attorney, said Monday….

While Kelner expects the House to take more time on the bill and for more changes to be made, he said if the Senate version is passed, he expects hedge funds and other managers would break off all ties with Congress and hire consultants to act as liaisons. ”It could become a full-employment act for lobbying firms that do political intelligence,” he said.

via Ban could make hedge funds lobbyists – NewsTimes.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has appointed Jeanette Franzel, managing director of the Government Accountability Office, to replace Daniel Goelzer as a member of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board – but not unanimously.

via SEC Appoints PCAOB New Member; Aguilar Dissents – Compliance Week.

Carlyle Group LP abandoned a plan to ban shareholders from filing class-action lawsuits after U.S. regulators threatened to block a stock sale the private-equity firm is seeking to complete as soon as April.

via Carlyle Drops Class-Action Lawsuit Ban as Opposition Mounts – Businessweek.

The former chief risk officer at MF Global who raised red flags about the firm’s aggressive trading bets told lawmakers that his warnings contributed to the firm’s decision to let him go in early 2011. Michael Roseman, who was ousted in January 2011 from the now-bankrupt futures brokerage, said he rang alarm bells about the firm’s exposure to European sovereign debt a year before the firm collapsed in late October of 2011.

via MF Global risk officer says ousted after warnings.–Reuters

The first-ever “Managed Sports Fund,” which tried to generate returns through bets on soccer, tennis, cricket, horse racing and golf, has reportedly crapped out.

via First-Ever Sports Betting Hedge Fund Craps Out – Compliance Week.

Companies’ FCPA compliance programs have generally focused on agents and freight forwarders, the types of business partners that tend to get in trouble with the law. Increasingly, however, companies are scrutinizing suppliers as well.

Due diligence of suppliers is becoming tougher; traditionally they have had to undergo only minimal credit checks, but now they are being chosen and reviewed much more carefully. And suppliers increasingly have to sign contracts that give their customers the right to audit them, and may also include an indemnification clause.

via FCPA Third Parties SEC Compliance.–CFO Magazine

It is quite possible that the Carlyle Group, the private equity firm that is preparing to go public, is proposing the most shareholder-unfriendly corporate governance structure in modern history.

via Carlyle Readies an Unfriendly I.P.O. for Shareholders – NYTimes.com.

Under proposed amendments to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines announced last week, recommended punishments for insider trading are likely to increase in response to Congressional pressure to ratchet up sentences for securities fraud. That will put even more pressure on defendants to cooperate with the government in the hope of receiving a reduced penalty.

via Greater Penalties for Insider Trading – NYTimes.com.

The changing mix of corporate and securities litigation is a recent phenomenon on which I have frequently commented on this blog. While identifying the fact of the change is relatively straightforward, explaining it is more challenging. According to a January 11, 2012 article in The Review of Securities & Commodities Regulation entitled “Shareholder Litigation After the Fall of an Iron Curtain”, written by Boris Feldman of the Wilson Sonsini law firm, the changing pattern in corporate and securities litigation filings is a result of changes in the plaintiffs’ securities litigation bar – particularly, the elimination of a dominant plaintiffs’ firm. These changes, according to Feldman, have resulted in the five recent securities litigation trends he identifies in his article.

via Changes in the Plaintiffs’ Class Action Bar and the Changing World of Shareholder Litigation: The D&O Diary.