Regulatory Solutions

Our Investment Funds Practice Group includes a regulatory solutions practice, with attorneys whose experience spans multiple regulatory regimes and diverse product types. Kirkland offers a deep, coordinated regulatory bench and a wealth of global regulatory experience, with talent derived from 85+ attorneys with decades of experience in private practice as well as in senior positions with government agencies, including the SEC. Kirkland’s partners include a former SEC Director of the Division of Investment Management, SEC Deputy Director of Examinations, Associate Director of Rulemaking as well as a former Associate Director in the Division of Enforcement and Senior Counsel to the Director of Enforcement, among others.

This, coupled with Kirkland’s significant number of registered private fund investment adviser clients, means Kirkland’s regulatory solutions practice is equipped to provide unique insights into the marketplace, and the operation of SEC, its policies and procedures, its Enforcement docket and regulatory matters, and the dynamics of the SEC’s decision-making process. Combined with the Firm’s Government, Regulatory & Internal Investigations Practice Group, our International Risk & Investigations Practice Group and our International Trade & National Security Practice Group, and leveraging strong integration with our leading Private Equity / M&A and Tax Practice Groups, Kirkland provides effective, proactive, and creative solutions to complex regulatory, enforcement and compliance issues. Our regulatory and compliance practice includes a focus on private fund investment manager registration, compliance and examinations, formation and operation of registered alternative funds and products, mergers, acquisitions, spin offs of investment advisers and broker-dealers and complex Investment Company Act status and structuring issues.

Kirkland’s investment funds attorneys have extensive experience advising on a broad spectrum of sensitive and mission critical regulatory and compliance issues. This is paired with Kirkland’s ability to leverage vast resources to navigate the intersection between core investment management regulatory regimes, such as the Investment Advisers Act, Investment Company Act, Securities Act, Securities Exchange Act, Commodity Exchange Act and Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD), as well as ERISA, tax and banking laws and regulations.

Investment management experience includes:

• Engagement at every stage of an SEC exam or enforcement action
• Development of, and regulatory engagement with respect to, innovative registered and exempt pooled investment vehicles, including mutual funds, hedge funds, liquid alternatives, exchange traded funds, business development companies, employee securities companies and special purpose companies
• Advice with respect to the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD)
• Organization and operation of a wide range of registered fund and hedge fund products
• Providing sophisticated formation and operations advice to fund advisers, including with respect to regulatory compliance
• Development, documentation and implementation of compliance policies and procedures and training of firm personnel
• Extensive experience structuring and advising issuers on avoiding investment company status under the Investment Company Act
• M&A and transactional support

Kirkland’s investment management attorneys provide industry experience in financial services transactions involving investment advisers, broker-dealers and other non-bank financial services firms and have worked on several of the largest asset management M&A transactions of the past several years. M&A experience includes mergers, acquisitions, minority investments, joint ventures, spin-outs and other transactions. Kirkland has extensive experience representing private equity firms buying and selling asset managers. Kirkland’s investment management attorneys work with our transactional, tax, ERISA and other teams to provide our clients with hands on experience of successfully executing transactions in this highly regulated industry.