Compliance

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.