On April 7, 2026, the SEC’s Division of Enforcement announced its Enforcement Results for Fiscal Year 2025, several months later than usual. Overall enforcement numbers declined again, as expected, but FY 2025 was an unusual transition year. Significant filing activity occurred before the change in administration, and the new Commission used the release to criticize volume-driven enforcement and reset the program around fraud, investor harm, market integrity, and individual accountability.
Risk #10: Fiduciary Duties Revisited: Delaware Law and the Fund Manager’s Evolving Obligations
A significant shift in Delaware law is reshaping how courts evaluate conflicted transactions involving controlling stockholders, including private fund managers that control portfolio companies. The changes make applying procedural safeguards all the more important. Fund managers who ensure the proper process is followed may significantly reduce their litigation exposure from minority shareholders.
Risk #9: What the New SEC’s First Year Signals for the Future of Private Fund Oversight
The SEC’s first year under Chair Paul Atkins, who was sworn in on April 21, 2025, has offered significant insight into the evolution of enforcement priorities, particularly for private fund managers. Following the more aggressive posture under former Chair Gary Gensler, the Commission has recalibrated its approach, yielding a more selective, resource-conscious enforcement program that places renewed emphasis on traditional fraud, clearer statutory grounding, and demonstrable investor harm.
Risk #8: Opening the Gates: Retail Access to Private Funds and the Coming Regulatory Pressure Points
For decades, private fund strategies were the domain of institutional investors and the ultra-wealthy. That exclusivity is ending as private strategies migrate into retail vehicles designed to hold illiquid assets within a retail regulatory framework.
Risk #7: Crypto’s Second Act: A Rational Framework or a Regulatory Mirage?
Many in the crypto space greeted the second Trump Administration with excitement. The first Trump Administration was crypto-friendly, but did not wholly overturn the existing securities framework for crypto assets. The Biden Administration was more skeptical of crypto, with then- Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler embracing the Howey test for securities. Crypto supporters thought 2025 might bring about the industry’s holy grail: a crypto-friendly regulatory framework allowing for crypto trading and offerings without the risk of civil (or criminal) inquiries down the line so long as the framework was followed.
Risk #6: Valuation Under Pressure: Market Stress and the Enforcement Lens
Markets have recently been experiencing heightened volatility and credit availability has tightened, which has placed valuation practices under unusual pressure from regulators and investors. The events of the past several years, including rising interest rates, geopolitical turmoil and the impacts of artificial intelligence tools, among other issues, have amplified the inherent challenges of valuing illiquid assets and sparked greater regulatory scrutiny. This is particularly true when marks affect fees paid by investors, or the prices at which they invest in or redeem from a fund.
Risk #5: Private Litigation Risk for GP-Led Secondary Transactions
GP-led secondary transactions continued to soar in popularity in 2025. With mixed economic indicators potentially impeding other kinds of private equity exit events, the uptick in continuation funds shows no signs of slowing down in 2026. Their popularity should come as no surprise—under the right conditions, a secondary transaction creates a win-win scenario for all stakeholders, providing legacy investors with near-term liquidity and an option to roll over their investments, new investors with an opportunity to invest in portfolio assets with a proven track record but greater room for growth, and fund advisers with an extended period to capture future upside as well as the potential for new capital to support portfolio assets.
Risk #4: Five Guidelines for ESG Disclosures in 2026: Choose Your Words Carefully
Choose your words carefully because careless words cost.
Never has this been more true than in disclosures about environmental, social and governance matters. As divergence between the US federal government and “red states” on the one hand, and the UK, EU, and certain US “blue states” on the other hand, solidifies, international asset managers and their underlying portfolio companies must navigate an increasingly narrow regulatory tightrope.
Risk #3: Five Considerations for Advisers Implementing AI in Investment Decisions
Use of technology referred to as “artificial intelligence” is fast finding its way into many aspects of commercial life. Registered investment advisers are no exception as AI tools are already being used for screening and research, portfolio construction, trading and drafting client communications. As advisers integrate these tools into their investment processes, they face a familiar set of questions under the federal securities laws.
Risk #2: AI Infrastructure Investing: Structuring, Disclosure and Contract Risks for Private Funds
As has been widely reported, digital infrastructure has become one of the fastest growing investment structures in recent years, most recently driven by the explosion in demand from firms in the artificial intelligence (AI) industry. This in turn has led to unprecedented needs for capex spending for the construction, expansion and upgrading of data centers, cell towers and networks, fiber optics and other data transmission facilities and power production and transmission.