SEC Floats Rules Requiring Hedge Fund, Other Private Fund Managers to Register

The Securities and Exchange Commission proposed rules on Friday stemming from the Dodd-Frank Act. The new rules would require hedge funds and other private funds to register with the commission, increase the threshold for the SEC’s oversight of advisors to $100 million in assets from $25 million (resulting in the switching of 4,100 advisors to state oversight), and create new data warehouses for swaps transactions.

The proposed rules issued on Nov. 19 would also define venture capital funds, SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro said in her opening statements at the Nov. 19 meeting. Early next year, Schapiro said, the SEC will take up a proposed rule to consider the systemic risk of private fund advisors. The Commodities Future Trading Commission (CFTC) issued on the same day its own proposal on swaps data repositories.