MFDF News Feed

May 13, 2026

On April 30, President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order titled “Promoting Retirement-Savings Access for American Workers by Establishing TrumpIRA.gov” which would require the Department of Treasury to establish a website to provide individuals with access.

May 12, 2026

Natasha Vij Greiner and Gretchen Passe Roin, partners at WilmerHale, will discuss the DOL's March 2026 proposed rule titled "Fiduciary Duties in Selecting Designated Investment Alternatives" and walk through the rule's process-based safe harbor framework — and what its six-factor analysis means in practice — before turning to the questions most relevant to registered fund boards.

May 11, 2026

The report reflects the evolving nature of the industry’s claims landscape, with increasing focus on governance processes, operational resiliency, vendor oversight, cybersecurity preparedness and documentation practices. These themes will also be explored during MFDF’s upcoming webinar, “Update on Fund Industry Claims Trends: An Insurer’s Perspective” on Wednesday, May 13.

May 7, 2026

Chair Atkins highlighted the Commission’s focus on private credit, including elevated redemption requests and default rate projections. He stated, “opacity in this space can be an issue,” adding that valuation, transparency, and credit quality are key for investors to understand, as well as the higher fees that follow this asset class.

May 6, 2026

John Mulligan and Julia Ulstrup of ICI Mutual will provide historical context, discuss current fund industry claims, and offer observations on the state of the market for directors and officers/errors and omissions and independent director liability insurance for funds and fund independent directors.

May 5, 2026

This relief will enable different funds or accounts to invest side-by-side in private deals historically not available to open-end funds. The no-action relief effectively authorizes open-end funds to participate, subject to their 15% liquidity restrictions, in co-investment transactions for the first time.

May 4, 2026

This program, part one of the MFDF’s virtual series on board oversight of alternative investments, will dive into the various types of registered product structures and key areas of focus for fund directors. Nathan Briggs and Debra Sutter, partners at Simpson Thacher; Kimberly Flynn of XA Investments, and Derek Mullins of Pine Advisor Solutions will delve into each of these product structures and highlight trends and potential challenges for fund boards.

April 30, 2026

The guidance proposes an activities-based approach to designation which includes risks arising from particular activities such as using derivatives, short-term funding reliance, or excessive leverage. The proposal also would require a cost-benefit analysis prior to designation including “the likelihood of the company’s material financial distress as part of its analysis of potential benefits and costs of a designation.”

April 29, 2026

While not a checklist for fund directors specifically, the list provides insight into the core components of a valuation framework. Items include governance policies, model validation, consistency in methodology, audit readiness, independent valuation testing, and other key factors.

April 28, 2026

The podcast will provide “stakeholders and the investing public with exclusive interviews and insights around the agency’s policy and rulemaking agenda.” In the first episode, Chair Atkins sat down with Commissioners Hester Peirce and Mark Uyeda to discuss the Commission’s mission and priorities.

April 27, 2026

In his testimony, Warsh noted “Central bankers must be strong enough to listen to a diversity of views from all corners, humble enough to be open-minded to new ideas and new economic developments, wise enough to translate imperfect data into meaningful insight, and dedicated enough to make judgments faithfully and wisely.”

April 23, 2026

The session will give board members a clear, actionable overview of the structural changes underway, including how tokenization, digital‑market infrastructure, and AI‑enabled trading are redefining investor behavior and market risk.

April 22, 2026

As part of this filing, TSEX asked the SEC to approve listing standards similar to that of the Chicago Board Options Exchange (Cboe) BZE Exchange. In addition, TSEX’s proposal would remove the annual shareholder meeting requirement for closed-end funds.

April 21, 2026

The report is an update from our 2009 white paper and covers the significant changes in regulation and the industry that have occurred since. While the bedrock legal framework and governance principles of board oversight of subadvisers have not changed, challenges for fund boards lurk in the regulatory requirements of the last decade (e.g, Liquidity, Valuation and Derivatives Rules), growing investor demand for complex new products, and evolving risk management issues around cybersecurity and artificial intelligence.

April 20, 2026

The Division reported 456 total enforcement actions, the lowest number in over 20 years, and approximately $17.9 billion in monetary relief. Unlike prior reports, the FY2025 report noted that 1095 matters had been closed without enforcement action, consistent with SEC Chairman Atkins statement in the report that the SEC had “put a stop to regulation by enforcement and recentered its enforcement program on the Commission’s core mission by prioritizing cases that provide meaningful investor protection and strengthen market integrity.”

April 16, 2026

Motley who died in 2005 at the age of 84, achieved many firsts over her career and was hailed as a “civil rights trailblazer, lawmaker and judge” in her New York Times obituary. In 1966, Motley was appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson to the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, the first African-American woman to sit on the federal bench, where she decided numerous cases in civil rights, corporate law and criminal law.

April 15, 2026

In late 2025, MFDF conducted a survey to gather information about the types of skills and backgrounds that are represented in fund boardrooms. In this spotlight webinar, Leslie Beckbridge, Operations and Member Services Manager at MFDF, will present some of the key findings from the survey report, share additional insights regarding the survey’s design and objectives, and explore how directors may draw meaning from the data.

April 14, 2026

MFDF recently hosted a webinar titled: Updates on the Role of AI in Compliance: Insights from ACA's 2025 AI Benchmarking Report. Carlo di Florio, President of ACA Group, joined MFDF to provide highlights from the report. Participants in the survey identified several key risks associated with the use of AI, including privacy and information security concerns, hallucinations, regulatory compliance challenges, and cybersecurity threats.

April 13, 2026

The session will highlight best practices for educating corporate directors on AI usage, including the use of AI-generated summaries of pre-read materials. While the event is directed toward corporate boards, independent fund directors may gain insight into how other boardrooms are utilizing AI, governance considerations, and risk management tools.

April 9, 2026

The report shows a point-in-time look at the independent directors that make up the fund board industry, and illuminates points of commonality between boards (all responding boards have at least one independent director who joined the board with existing experience serving on another type of board) as well as areas of variability among boards, such as with regard to board members serving on multiple fund boards.