SEC Enforcement and Regulation of Asset Managers, Broker-Dealers, Private Funds and Hedge Funds

Lauren Lin serves as Chief Legal Officer, overseeing the teams responsible for legal, compliance, regulatory affairs, and product counseling at Wealthfront. Lauren has nearly 20 years of financial services experience. Prior to Wealthfront, Lauren was the General Counsel and Head of Compliance at FNY Capital Management, a FINRA and SEC-registered proprietary trading partnership. She also worked as derivatives counsel for an investment bank and began her career as a securities litigator. Lauren holds a B.A. from Columbia University, cum laude, and a J.D. from Cornell Law School.

Jennifer Hull provides clients with services involving forensic investigations, financial statement analysis, compliance, technical audit and accounting guidance, and damage assessment.

She is a Certified Public Accountant and is Accredited in Business Valuation by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. She has audit experience in numerous entities, including trusts, hedge funds, hedge fund administrators, and insurance companies. She is proficient in internal control standards as well as audit standards issued by the AICPA, PCAOB, and IAASB.

Frequent topics of Ms. Hull’s consulting engagements include damage calculations, estimates of fair value, adherence with stated investment objectives, sufficiency of audit procedures and/or audit evidence, adherence with US GAAP, IFRS, or statutory accounting principles (SAP), the calculation of performance fees, achievement of risk transfer, and adequacy of disclosures.

Ms. Hull testified in the defense of an audit partner whose team audited a hedge fund feeder to Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities (BLMIS). Her scope of testimony included assessment of “red flags” that allegedly should have signaled to the audit partner that he should have performed additional audit procedures, including seeking a service organization control report relating to BLMIS. Her analysis included review of audit programs, work papers, and conclusions in the context of BLMIS’ alleged investment strategy and available information.

Prior to joining a global consulting firm in 2006, Ms. Hull spent four years working for Aon Captive Services Group (ACSG), which was the largest captive insurance management organization in the world. She was based in the Cayman Islands and was responsible for managing a diverse portfolio of captive insurance companies. Her responsibilities included coordinating and executing insurance and reinsurance agreements, directing and analyzing actuarial reviews, maintaining accounting and corporate records, monitoring regulatory compliance, and adhering to the Cayman Islands’ guidelines for the prevention and detection of money laundering. Ms. Hull’s responsibilities also included presenting insurance/reinsurance programs, financial statistics, and domicile information at periodic meetings of each insurance company’s board of directors. Her work required extensive coordination with auditors, lawyers, regulators, insurance brokers, risk managers, and investment managers.

Prior to working for ACSG, Ms. Hull spent four years working for Arthur Andersen LLP in Minneapolis and in the Cayman Islands. She assisted with audits required by regulators or financial institutions for clients in various industries. Her audit clients included a Minneapolis HMO as well as Cayman-domiciled captive insurance companies, banks, hedge funds, and trusts. Her financial investigative assignments included matters involving alleged money laundering and other fraudulent activities.

Ms. Hull earned the Certified Public Accountant designation from the Minnesota Board of Accountancy.

Jeremy Pendrey is an Assistant Regional Director at the SEC and a member of the Asset Management Unit.

Hardy Calccott's practice concentrates on enforcement defense and regulatory counseling concerning securities market and regulatory issues for broker-dealers, investment advisers, mutual funds and others in the financial services industry. He provides securities enforcement defense before the SEC, Department of Justice, FINRA and other SRO and state regulators for members of financial services industry, public companies and officers and directors. He also conducts internal investigations.
Hardy is a member of Sidley’s global Securities Enforcement and Regulatory practice, which received the 2019 Chambers USA Award for “Financial Services Regulation Firm of the Year” and 2020 Chambers USA Band 1 for Financial Services Regulation: Broker Dealer (Compliance & Enforcement). Sidley was also named the “Law Firm of the Year” for Securities Regulation in 2020 and 2017 by U.S. News – Best Lawyers. Hardy was ranked nationally in Chambers USA for Securities Financial Services Regulation 2008–2021, including the highest category, Band 1, in both Broker Dealer (Compliance) in 2020 and Broker Dealer (Enforcement) in 2020 and 2021. He was also included in The Best Lawyers in America 2007–2012 and 2014–2016 lists, chosen based on peer-reviewed surveys of U.S. lawyers. He was with Charles Schwab & Co. Inc., as senior vice president and general counsel. He served in the General Counsel’s Office of the SEC as assistant general counsel for Market Regulation (now Trading and Markets), and taught in the Securities LLM program at Georgetown University Law Center. After law school, Hardy clerked for the Hon. Mariana Pfaelzer in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

Peter Altman represents investment management firms, private and public companies, and individuals in white collar and other government enforcement and regulatory matters, securities and investment fund-related litigation and internal investigations. He represents clients in investigations and examinations conducted by the SEC and investigations conducted by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). Peter is a leader in the firm’s Digital Assets, Cryptocurrency and Blockchain practice and represents individuals and companies in government enforcement matters involving cryptocurrency, decentralized finance (DeFi), and other digital assets such as smart contracts and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Peter’s experience serving at the SEC provides him with a deep familiarity of the federal securities and commodities laws and the processes of the SEC. He routinely provides advice in investigations and enforcement proceedings involving issues, such as alleged insider trading and other forms of market abuse, and disclosure-related and regulatory compliance issues. He also advises investment advisers on day-to-day risk management issues related to topics including securities trading, compliance with the Investment Advisers Act, and the use of alternative data and web scraping in the investment research process.
Efficient, responsive and careful, Peter understands how government agencies identify, investigate, evaluate and present cases for enforcement action.
He sits on the firm’s Partnership Admissions Committee and is the Chair of the Los Angeles Office Hiring Committee.