Proskauer’s Private Investment Funds Group today released its 2018 Annual Review and Outlook for Hedge Funds, Private Equity Funds and Other Private Funds. This yearly publication provides a summary of some of the significant changes and developments that occurred in the past year in the private equity and hedge
WSJ Article on Geolocation Data Highlights Risks for Fund Managers
By Joshua M. Newville & Jeffrey Neuburger on
On Friday, the WSJ published an article detailing how companies are monetizing smartphone location data by selling it to hedge fund clients. The data vendor featured in the WSJ article obtains geolocation data from about 1,000 apps that fund managers use to predict trends involving public companies. However, as we’ve noted, the use of alternative data collection for investment research purposes may give rise to a host of potential issues under relevant laws.
Bharara Task Force on Insider Trading
By Joshua M. Newville & Samuel J. Waldon on
Former SDNY U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara and SEC Commissioner Jackson recently announced, via NY Times op-ed, the creation of the Bharara Task Force on Insider Trading. Based on the premise that U.S. insider trading laws are unclear and hopelessly out of date, the task force intends to propose new insider trading reforms to help clarify the laws and protect American investors.
Jackson and Bharara recognize that individuals facing liability should have more clarity about what the law is. For those of us who regularly advise fund managers on compliance with insider trading rules, more clarity would be a welcome development.
Best Practices for Fund Managers to Mitigate Big Data and Web Scraping Risks
Proskauer partners Jeff Neuburger, Robert Leonard, Josh Newville and Jonathan Richman recently invited hedge fund executives to discuss the complex regulatory and compliance issues raised by the use of alternative data. Jeff, Robert and Josh also contributed an article to the Hedge Fund Law Report on Best Practices for Private Fund Advisers to Manage the Risks of Big Data and Web Scraping.
Fund managers have been capitalizing on methods to refine and analyze big data to assist investment decisions. What types of alternative data are being used to gain new insights? Sources include: e-commerce receipts and credit-card transaction data; sensors from internet-connected machines or smart devices; and online data collected via “screen scraping” (or “web scraping” or “spidering”).
Yet alternative data does not come without risks. For example, data collected as a result of web scraping may be considered material nonpublic information (MNPI). If that data were collected in a manner considered deceptive, then trading on that information might implicate the anti-fraud provisions of the securities laws. Circumventing security protocols or disguising a scraper’s identity on a site (where required), among other behaviors, could be viewed as misrepresentations or “deceptive devices” under Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act.d