Regulation

In a rare bit of backing from a major regulator, Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission has come out in favor of short-selling.

Hedge funds will again have to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission, a top Congressional leader said yesterday.

Sen. Arlen Specter, who once said that he wanted to see hedge fund managers put in jail, joined the Democratic Party yesterday, moving them a step closer to a filibuster-proof majority in the U.S. Senate.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has about 150 active hedge fund investigations, the agency’s chairman said yesterday.

France’s economy minister has become the latest to pile on the as-yet-unreleased but still remarkably unpopular draft hedge fund rules for the European Union.

The European Union’s planned hedge fund regulation regime is under siege from both sides.

New York-based Belstar Group has launched a pair of hedge funds to invest in government-financed asset-backed securities.

As the investigation into an alleged kickback scheme at New York State’s pension plan, the Empire State is barring the use of placement agents.

The Hennessee Group, the alternative investments adviser and hedge fund index provider, has settled charges of due diligence failures in recommending a fraudulent hedge fund to its clients.

New York-based Hennessee and principal Charles Gradante “did not perform key elements of the due diligence that they had represented they would conduct prior to recommending investments in the Bayou hedge funds,” the Securities and Exchange Commission alleged.

Leftist members of the European Parliament are blasting the European Commission’s soon-to-be-proposed hedge fund regulation, with their leader calling it “almost worthless.”