SEC remarks before the Hedge Fund Institutional Forum

05 March 2007




Speaking before the Hedge Fund Institutional Forum Corporate Funds Roundtable, SEC Commissioner Campos said that “far from precluding or requiring future regulatory action, we simply need to be prepared to regulate when the circumstances necessitate it, and to exercise restraint when they don't.”

“I do not read the President's Working Group paper as either deferring all responsibility to general 'market discipline' or rejecting any further role for regulators in the monitoring and regulation of hedge funds”, Campos said. “The paper makes it clear that regulators have and should use their authority to foster vital and stable capital markets” he said. “I would hardly characterize this as 'inaction.', he continued.

However, he also stated that “I see the paper's generally positive tone as a reflection of the many strong regulatory policies that currently are in place, and are currently being considered, to protect hedge fund investors.”

The US has a detailed regulatory regime that oversees and monitors market participants like broker-dealers and investment banks that interact with hedge funds. “That being said, I read nothing in the paper as precluding or discouraging consideration of further regulatory action if the circumstances were to warrant it” he said. “I do not mean to imply by this last statement that I believe that we should be looking for new and intrusive ways to regulate or monitor hedge funds.”

Full speech

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