SEC promotes deputies to head enforcement asset management unit

The Securities and Exchange Commission today elevated two staff members to head the Division of Enforcement's Asset Management Unit, which targets investment advisers, investment companies and private funds. Julie M. Riewe and Marshall S. Sprung were tapped as co-chiefs of the unit. They both had been serving as deputy chiefs of the group since May 2012. They takeover for Bruce Karpati, the first head of the unit, who served from its creation in January 2010 until he left the agency last May. The unit comprises more than 75 attorneys, industry experts and other professionals. Ms. Riewe and Mr. Sprung were “instrumental in developing several proactive risk-based initiatives” that address emerging fraud trends in asset management, including one focused on “advisers' undisclosed receipt of compensation from broker-dealers and their affiliates to reward the advisers for making certain types of investments,” the SEC said in a statement. An example of that type of case was a $1.1 million settlement last September between the SEC and Christopher Keil Hicks and his advisory firms, Focus Point Solutions Inc. and The H Group Inc. Mr. Hicks allegedly received revenue-sharing payments from a brokerage firm that managed mutual funds he recommended to clients. Mr. Hicks and the firms settled without admitting or denying the SEC charges. Ms. Riewe and Mr. Sprung also helped establish an initiative that targets investment advisers giving preferential treatment to clients on the allocation of trades and investment opportunities. In addition, they have supervised cases involving securities rip-offs on social-media sites, fraudulent asset valuations and the failure of mutual fund gatekeepers to disclose fully the factors behind rewarding investment advisory contracts. Ms. Riewe, who has been at the SEC since 2005, and Mr. Sprung, who started with the agency in 2003, both worked as lawyers prior to joining the SEC. In another personnel move today, the SEC announced that the director of its Chicago regional office, Merri Jo Gillette, is stepping down. Ms. Gillette ran the Chicago operation, with a staff of more than 250, since 2004. She had worked at the SEC for 25 years. She is leaving to join the law firm Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP.