Be ready when the SEC asks for your records

SEC exam readiness is a firm's ability to produce, on request, the records that show its compliance program works, and to explain the decisions in them. In practice that means knowing where each record lives, who can pull it, and how fast. Red Oak keeps marketing approvals, supervision decisions, and archived communications on record in the products that created them. See a demo

SEC examiners send an initial request list scoped to the firm's business and risks. For advisers, the SEC's published guidance groups requests into general information, the compliance program and internal controls, trading activities, and compliance testing, which includes marketing and advertising. Lists usually ask for policies and annual reviews, correspondence, the code of ethics, and how the firm monitors electronic communications. Books and records

SEC staff usually allow two weeks to produce records for an initial request, and the SEC expects records in most cases to be available within 24 hours. A broker-dealer furnishes copies of its required records promptly when SEC staff ask (SEC Rule 17a-4(j)). A firm that rehearses its request list meets those windows from records it already keeps. Investigations and regulatory requests

A FINRA cycle exam is a routine exam of a member firm, scheduled by firm type and FINRA's assessment of the firm's risk. A cause exam is opened in response to something specific, such as a customer complaint or a regulatory tip. In either, FINRA can require a member to provide information and to make its books and records available (FINRA Rule 8210). Investigations and regulatory requests

A firm shows who approved a piece of marketing by producing the submission's record: each version, each comment, the approval, and when each happened. In Advertising Review, every submission keeps that record, and the Submissions Report gathers one submission's trail into a PDF. Advertising Review