Overview
Built for Highly Regulated, Fast‑Moving Financial Services Businesses
For broker-dealers, investment advisers, and their affiliates, fast-moving markets and stringent regulations are a fact of life. Robust, comprehensive compliance strategies are essential to support growth and protect long-term value.
Michael Best advises clients across the full lifecycle of their businesses, serving as a strategic partner on regulatory compliance, transactions, risk mitigation, investigations, and day-to-day operations. We focus on helping clients analyze, design, implement, and defend compliance programs while remaining attuned to the broader business realities shaping their decisions.
As a full-service strategic partner, Michael Best’s Broker-Dealer & Investment Advisers team is uniquely positioned, representing our clients on all aspects of their business. We work in interdisciplinary teams with lawyers across the firm, drawing on the strengths of our Corporate, Litigation, Privacy & Cybersecurity, Labor & Employment Relations, Regulatory & Compliance, Capital Markets, and Venture Best groups. Together, we deliver the actionable advice and assistance you need to meet today’s challenges, from the everyday to the exceptional.
Our clients include clearings firms, independent broker-dealers (as well as those affiliated with financial institutions), investment advisers, hedge funds, family offices, venture capital funds, private equity funds, angel network funds, accelerators, and evergreen funds, among others.
Our Approach: An Integrated Approach to Regulation, Risk & Opportunity
Broker-dealers and investment advisers operate at the intersection of regulation, risk, and opportunity. Our approach is grounded in deep regulatory experience, practical business judgment, and a commitment to serving as an extension of our clients’ teams.
We work proactively with clients to anticipate regulatory developments, design compliance frameworks that scale with their businesses, and respond decisively when issues arise. Whether advising on formation and registration, supporting examinations and investigations, navigating complex transactions, or assisting with no-action relief requests or proposed rulemaking comments, we tailor our guidance to each client’s structure, strategy, and risk tolerance.
By integrating regulatory, transactional, and litigation perspectives, we help clients balance compliance obligations with commercial objectives and position them for sustainable growth in an increasingly scrutinized environment.
Focus Areas
We advise broker‑dealer clients across the full scope of regulatory, transactional, and enforcement matters, including:
- Formation, transfer, registration, licensing, and membership applications
- Compliance with federal, state, and self‑regulatory organization requirements
- Capital‑raising and strategic transactions
- Securities registration and due diligence procedures
- Anti‑fraud, anti‑manipulation, and anti–money laundering (AML) compliance
- Internal and government investigations, examinations, litigation, and enforcement actions before the SEC, FINRA, CFTC, and state regulators
We represent a broad range of advisory firms and dually registered investment adviser/broker‑dealers, including those affiliated with financial institutions, advising on:
- Licensing and registration at the federal and state level
- Compliance with investment adviser, securities, and applicable banking regulations
- Preparation and maintenance of disclosure documents
- Review of marketing and advertising materials
- Compliance audits and internal investigations
- Development and implementation of compliance and remediation programs
- Regulatory inquiries, examinations, and enforcement actions
We provide integrated regulatory and transactional counsel to established and emerging funds and their sponsors, including:
- Fund and sponsor formation, structuring, and continuation
- Exemptions from registration under the Investment Company Act of 1940
- Registration of investment advisers and broker‑dealers
- Ongoing compliance for registered investment advisers and exempt reporting advisers
- SEC and FINRA examinations and regulatory inquiries
- Portfolio company acquisition and management
- Sponsor‑level exit and investment transactions
Our experience spans a wide range of fund structures, including venture capital, private equity, special‑purpose vehicles, pledge funds, and bespoke investment strategies.
Through our entrepreneurial affiliate Venture Best, we support funds, sponsors, and investors operating by providing market insight and facilitating connections between funding sources and high‑growth companies.
Working alongside our Derivatives practice, we help dealers and investors manage legal, business, and regulatory risk in connection with:
- Prime brokerage agreements
- Margin financing and lockups
- ISDA Master Agreements
- Equity swaps and master confirmations
- Structured derivatives transactions
- Futures and options agreements
- Master repurchase agreements
- Securities lending agreements
