Fundsters with new fund firms, fund firms that have never caught regulatory attention, or fundsters whose firms have not been inspected in a while should expect to be at the top of Washington's list this year in terms of regulatory scrutiny.

Peter Driscoll U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Head of the Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations

Those tidbits and more were revealed yesterday by Pete Driscoll, director of the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC's) Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE), with the release of OCIE's 2020 examination priorities. (Mutual funds and the firms that run them fall under the SEC's jurisdiction.)

< Other 2020 OCIE priorities (listed in the 28-page document) include: protecting retail investors (by watching advisors and retail investment products, including watching their share classes, fees, and conflicts of interest); eyeing fund boards' oversight practices; and paying attention to fintech developments. Expect particular attention to be paid to mutual funds and ETFs that the SEC has never examined before and to fund firms that outsource some of the work around their funds by working with subadvisors, fund-in-a-box shops, or other outsourced back-office shops. 

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