Compliance

The performance of 78 percent of the approximately 500 existing closed-end funds will most likely soon be published daily, providing a boost to the popularity of the product.

The fight between Donald Yacktman and the independent directors of his funds is likely to continue this month, propelled in part by intervention from the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Representatives of the mutual fund industry are moving quietly in Massachusetts to enact a law which would help define what makes a mutual fund director independent, an increasingly contentious issue.

The practice of paying brokers fees to reward them for maintaining assets under management for as long as possible may be resurfacing even as regulators weigh whether the practice warrants increased oversight.

The National Association of Securities Dealers has amended its by-laws to require the executive representatives of each member organization to maintain e-mail accounts for communications with NASD. The new requirement becomes effective Jan. 1, 1999.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), the self-regulatory body governing the accounting industry, has adopted a change in the accounting method closed-end fund advisers must use that will reduce these companies' profits. The rules apply to funds that lack 12b-1 or contingent deferred sales charges (fees paid when a shareholder redeems his shares). These include closed-end and privately-placed funds.

Donald Yacktman and his money management firm have won an early round in their court fight with the independent directors of the Yacktman funds.

Investment company advisers have until Dec. 7 to file the first of two required new forms with the Securities and Exchange Commission on how prepared their computer systems are for the Year 2000. The second form is due by June 7, 1999. Advisers may not file forms more than two weeks before the deadlines.

Legislation that would make it easier for banks, brokerage firms and insurance companies to merge and cross-sell products and which consumer groups attacked as anti-competitive and a major threat to privacy, will not be passed this year. But, the Financial Services Modernization Act, which the Senate was expected not to act on before Congress adjourned, is likely to be revived next year.

Echoing a complaint against Fidelity Investments filed by shareholders three weeks earlier, shareholders of T. Rowe Price have filed a suit challenging the independence of the Baltimore company's directors.

The SEC has provided more detail on how funds can illustrate their investment performance in new and newly revised SEC documents. The details concern the newly revised N-1A form and the new profile or summary prospectuses.

The fact that the mutual fund industry's primary trade organization, the Investment Company Institute (ICI), relies on the dues of mutual fund companies which in turn pass on the cost to shareholders, means the group represents two constituencies whose interests are sometimes diametrically opposed, some critics say.

A Fidelity Investments shareholder last week filed suit against the fund management company and its affiliates, alleging that well-paid Fidelity fund directors have become a "rubber stamp" for what the shareholder contends are excessive fees charged investors.

The independent directors of the Yacktman funds have asked the SEC to intervene in their fight with Donald Yacktman. The directors contend that Yacktman and his money management firm have made "thinly veiled threats" to try to control the independent directors. In addition, the directors allege that employees at Yacktman's firm have engaged in improper practices, including unspecified violations of the funds' code of ethics.

Canada's new watchdog group -- charged with overseeing the firms that distribute mutual funds -- could not have been formed at a better time.

WASHINGTON -- The Securities and Exchange Commission wants the fund industry to provide investors with personalized statements, perhaps as frequently as every quarter, which detail the expenses each investor pays for investing in a fund.

A mutual fund group that wants to go out of business used overstated net asset values (NAV) for its funds.