Gorden Geckko Grows Up – Michael Douglas Makes Insider Trading Infomercial for FBI
Actor Michael Douglas, who famously played the Wall St. icon Gordon Geckko in the Oliver Stone film Wall St., has had a change of heart. The fictional fund manager once famously touted, “Greed is good.” Here is a video of some of the more notable quotes from Mr. Geckko in the movie:
The actor has recently teamed up with the FBI to create a video which encourages would be tipsters to come forward with any insider trading news, and outlines, that greed is not good. Here is the video:
Tipsters who decide to turn into rats and go to the government might do better then to follow Douglas’ advice. Whistleblower lawyer David K. Colapinto
outlines that, “If they just go to the FBI, they are probably going to get zero,” Colapinto said. “The FBI’s not obligated to do anything for them.”
Colapinto said that if informants want a reward for information that exposes financial fraud, they should consult a lawyer — and file a whistleblower claim with the SEC.
Under the SEC’s , tipsters are entitled to 10 to 30 percent of the money the SEC collects if the whistleblower’s information leads to an enforcement action in which sanctions of more than $1 million are ordered. The bounties were ordered by Congress in the aftermath of the financial crisis and were intended to be powerful weapond in the war on Wall Street fraud. That being said Harry Markopolos, who reported the Madoff fraud to the SEC for years, got nothing.
Attempting to diagnose whether or not a hedge fund has the potential to be exposed to insider trading scandals can be a critical part of analysis of a fund’s compliance and trading functions during the operational due diligence process. Investors should attempt to evaluate such risks during a review of operational risk factors including persona
l trading policies.
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Corgentum Consulting Releases Hedge Fund Newsletter: Operational Due Diligence Insights
Corgentum Consulting has today released the first issue of its new operational due diligence newsletter entitled, Operational Due Diligence Insights. This newsletter will bring investors unique operational due diligence news and insights . Topics covered in this issue include:
- How will SEC registration influence investor due diligence on hedge funds?
- Tools for investors to evaluate financial statement risk
- Considerations when analyzing administrator independence in the valuation process
- Diagnosing information security risks
This newsletter will be available on Corgentum Consulting’s website via direct link here.
Operational Due Diligence Insights also includes a section about Corgentum’s upcoming events like their new webinar: Operational Due Diligence Survival Kit for 2012. This webinar will be on March 15 from 2-3 pm EST and will give attendees vital information to asses and uncover operational risk in hedge funds, private equity and traditional funds. Click here to signup for the upcoming webinar.
Readers can also visit Corgentum’s contact page to sign up to receive future issues as well as other Corgentum news and upcoming events.
Focus on Operational Risk and Due Diligence: Corgentum Discusses Operational Risk with HFMWeek
A new article this week in HFMWeek focuses on operational risk and operational due diligence in hedge funds. Corgentum Consulting Managing Partner, Jason Scharfman is featured this week in the article.
In the article, which is entitled “Focus on Operational Risk” Mr. Scharfman discusses the enhanced focus which investors and hedge funds have placed on operational risk management and operational due diligence in the aftermath of the financial crisis.
Mr. Scharfman also cites Corgentum’s proprietary research which demonstrates an increasing trend that managers with weaker operational infrastructures demonstrate lower performance as opposed to those with stronger operations. Other key operational risk considerations outlined by Mr. Scharfman in the article include:
- The presence of conflicts of interest related to providing operational due diligence services to both hedge funds and investors
- The dangers of over reliance on hedge fund regulation to supplant investor’s own due diligence efforts
- Ways in which investors can benefit from having an independent third party consultant such as Corgentum assisting with operational due diligence reviews
- The benefits to a hedge fund’s operations of proper internal resource allocation and management oversight
The article can be found in print editions of HFMWeek at HFMWeek.com, or via direct link.
