If you missed K&L Gates' February 3rd webinar, SEC’s Focus on Mutual Funds Fees Pushes Directors toward Year-Round Diligence, the firm has made available a replay of the discussion.  The webinar featured some very interesting dicussions, focusing on some areas affecting fund directors, including: 

• Advisory and other Service Fees - The SEC is clearly looking closely at the 15(c) process. As noted in SEC Enforcement Chief Khuzami's testimony, the staff are developing a set of analytic tools to permit them to identify outlier fees (both advisory and other service fees) and plan to use the results of these analyses to institute OCIE examinations and enforcement investigations.

• The Role of the Board - The SEC staff clearly indicated that investigations into outlier fees will include analysis of whether independent directors have fulfilled their fiduciary obligations during the 15(c) process - in particular, whether directors are appropriately vetting fee arrangements. Conversely, the SEC staff also indicated that they would review whether advisers are providing directors with all information necessary to conduct a robust 15(c) process.

• Valuation - The SEC continues to examine closely situations in which portfolio securities are misvalued, particularly situations in which the incorrect valuation results from a failure to follow or deviation from established valuation procedures.

For access to the replay, visit http://www.visualwebcaster.com/event.asp?id=76299, and enter event passcode, klgates, when prompted.