Funds Talk: August 2020

Topics covered in this issue include:

• The President’s Recent Immigration Proclamations Will Profoundly Affect Asset Management Firms and Hedge Funds
  Asset management firms and hedge funds regularly employ the very best financial and quantitative analysts and IT professionals from around the world. To secure their services, firms must sponsor these highly talented individuals for employment-based work visas. Over the past several months, due to COVID-19, the President signed a series of immigration proclamations that will affect these foreign national employees and the financial firms that employ them.
   
• Antitrust Litigation Opportunity for Funds
  Kramer Levin is representing Procter & Gamble in an antitrust lawsuit against BNSF Railway Company, Union Pacific Railroad Company, CSX Transportation Inc. and Norfolk Southern Railway Company (the Railroads). The action alleges that from 2003 – 2008 the Railroads participated in a price-fixing conspiracy whereby they charged uniform fuel surcharges to their customers that bore no relationship to their actual fuel costs.
  
  
• Revisions to California Privacy Law to Appear as November Ballot Initiative

  Data privacy compliance emerged as a top-tier issue for businesses across the globe with the implementation of new laws with broad scope and sweeping coverage, including the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the European Court of Justice’s invalidation of the US-EU Privacy Shield. Next up is a possible set of amendments to the CCPA on the ballot in California this November. What would those changes mean for your organization?
  
  

• SEC Proposes Amendments to Update Form 13F
  The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has recently proposed to amend the reporting threshold and make certain other changes to Form 13F. It should be noted that this is the first time the reporting threshold would be adjusted in more than 40 years since the SEC first adopted Form 13F.