Tim Foley advises bulge-bracket investment banks and other top-tier financial institutions, particularly U.S.-registered broker-dealers, in regulatory compliance and enforcement matters involving the SEC, FINRA, self-regulatory (SRO) agencies and state and foreign regulatory agencies. Tim has extensive knowledge of sales and trading operations of institutional broker-dealers, including low-touch algorithmic and direct market access strategies, as well as high-touch and retail sales practices. Tim has handled a wide variety of regulatory inquiries and related investigations involving issues such as trade reporting, fair pricing and mark-up/mark-down rules, market manipulation, short sales including topics under Regulations SHO and M, and marketplace structure rules including Regulations ATS and NMS. In these matters, Tim directly assists clients with analyzing complex order, execution, and routing data and other records.
Tim also has extensive experience advising fund complexes in matters involving broker-dealer registration and distribution channel requirements, including issues involving advertising, communications, and organization and offering expenses. He has conducted large-scale retail sales practice investigations for retail broker-dealers, particularly independent broker-dealers and their individual registered representatives, in large-scale retail sales practice investigations involving complex products suitability. These investigations focused on variable annuity, REIT, and nontraditional ETF sales.