Reading 6: Asset Manager Code of Professional Conduct －LO

recently, employee, several, black, white

Q2. Georgette Litman, CFA, is an employee of Cooper and Grey Financial Consultants. She has had the responsibility for several client portfolios over several years. Litman was recently promoted to a senior management position with the idea of establishing guidelines to help ensure compliance with the Chartered Financial Analyst Institute Code and Standards and also the CFAI Asset Manager Code of Professional Conduct in the firm’s portfolio management business. To help in this task of compliance, Cooper and Grey Financial Consultants has hired Jack Book to help institute a set of procedures that will help Cooper and Grey Financial Consultants achieve their goal. Book has a legal background and is a new employee at Cooper and Grey Financial Consultants. Litman hopes that Book can help by providing a new and outside perspective to the process. Although Book is not a member of CFAI and has no immediate plans for joining CFAI and taking the Level I exam, Book brings a wealth of knowledge and experience. Understandably, Book must take some time to understand many details, e.g., the reasons for a separate conduct code for asset managers that is in addition to the CFAI Code of Professional Conduct.

Litman wants to know what the clients of Cooper and Grey Financial Consultants are thinking and get their perspective on how the firm is doing. She knows that many of the employees of Cooper and Grey Financial Consultants have close relationships with the clients and that gifts have been exchanged on occasion. She asks Book to look into this activity. She tells Book that it is acceptable for “token” gifts of any kind (except illegal substances) to be exchanged as long as the employees inform her of the gift. She sits down with Book to compose a list of all the recent gifts that Cooper and Grey Financial Consultants employees have told her they have received. She says that it is a good step to finally get them written down. After they compose this list, Book is to find out if there have been gifts that Litman was not informed as being given or received.

Litman is also concerned that money-laundering may be occurring through the accounts at Cooper and Grey Financial Consultants. Book has a background in detecting money-laundering activities, and this was one of the reasons Litman suggested that Cooper and Grey Financial Consultants hire Book. Litman asks Book to create an anti-money-laundering policy to detect and help prevent Cooper and Grey from being used for that purpose and other illegal activities. Litman cautions Book that the CFAI Asset Manager Code of Professional Conduct prevents Cooper and Grey Financial Consultants from providing client information to legal authorities, so Book will have to be careful in the design of the policies. Litman tells Book that, if all goes well in this area, she will see to it that Book becomes the compliance office of Cooper and Grey. In this position, Litman says that Book will report directly to her, and she will then use this information to report directly to the CEO and board of directors.

Litman asks Book to help her draft procedures for monitoring performance and evaluating managers. She and Book compile a list of procedures that they plan to employ. Litman recommends abiding by the Global Investment Performance Standards, or GIPS, and using fair-market values when determining portfolio asset values. Book insists that Cooper and Grey Financial Consultants should use a third party for valuing asset accounts.

In addition to suggesting that an independent third party evaluate the performance of managers, Book recommends that the information disseminated to clients be reviewed by an independent third party for accuracy and completeness. Furthermore, in addition to maintaining adequate records, Book insists that Cooper and Grey Financial Consultants develop a plan for dealing with a natural disaster or some other event that could potentially destroy the records.

With respect to establishing compliance with the CFAI Asset Manager Code of Professional Conduct, the fact that Book is not a member of CFAI is:

A) not directly important.

B) important and must be immediately remedied by his enrolling for the Level I exam.

C) important and must be immediately remedied by his joining CFAI, but he does not have to enroll for the Level I exam.