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Ethics Case Study of the Week: Compliant with Record Retention Standard?

By Gary Sarkissian posted 10-19-2020 08:00

  

CFA Institute’s Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Conduct codify the ethical guidelines for the investment profession that are critical to maintaining the integrity of capital markets and investor trust.  Members, candidates, and even firms make a commitment to uphold these standards as they help elevate ethical decision-making universally around the globe.  

As investment professionals, we are certain to face important ethical decisions in our day-to-day activities.  Some scenarios we encounter will be straightforward, while others may be more complex.  No matter what circumstances we face, continuous learning remains imperative in an investment industry that continues to evolve with products undergoing innovation and a regulatory environment continuing to adapt. 

For that reason, each week we will feature a sample case from CFA Institute’s Ethics in Practice Casebook.  Each case is built upon a real-life example that may involve a regulatory matter or even a CFA Institute Professional Conduct investigation.  At the end of the case is a multiple-choice question that addresses the ethical nature of the actions taken in that case.  

This week’s case involves Standard V(C) Record Retention.


Compliant with Record Retention Standard?
Ianetta is the chief compliance officer for Rocky Mountain Investments (RMI). He is responsible for establishing and maintaining appropriate regulatory compliance policies, including a document retention policy. RMI’s policies require retaining and archiving the emails of the firm’s personnel. RMI has rapidly expanded over the years, and Ianetta determines that the firm should move to a new and less expensive email archive provider. But during the transition, several thousand emails are temporarily inaccessible. In addition, the new system does not capture emails from accounts hosted on an external server, and it does not archive emails sent from a third-party provider’s application (“cloud” email). Do Ianetta’s actions comply with the CFA Insitute Code and Standards?

A. No because the record retention system Ianetta implemented is inadequate.
B. Yes, as long as the inaccessible emails are able to be recovered.
C. Yes because emails sent and received outside RMI’s email system are not required to be retained.
D. Yes, if the emails are more than five years old.


What do you think is the correct choice?  Click the “Analysis” button below to see the analysis, and feel free to discuss in the comments below.  The completion of this case qualifies for 0.25 hour of Standards, Ethics, and Regulation (SER) credit


The issue in the case involves record keeping. CFA Institute Standard V(C): Record Retention states that CFA Institute members must “develop and maintain appropriate records to support their investment analyses, recommendations, actions, and other investment-related communications with clients and prospective clients.” Emails to and from firm personnel are important records of the firm’s business. As the firms’ chief compliance officer, Ianetta has the responsibility to develop policies and procedures to meet the record retention requirements for RMI. The emails of firm personnel must be preserved regardless of what email service or platform is used to generate them. The requirement is not limited to only emails sent and received through the firm’s internal server.

Guidance for Standard V(C) recommends that records be retained up to seven years in the absence of regulatory requirements. It is not clear what regulatory regime RMI is subject to if any, but best practice would be to keep seven years of the email records. The facts state that during the transition to the new email archive service provider, the records (emails) were temporarily unavailable, although it is not clear for how long. But even if the records are not available for a short time, it would be unacceptable. Lack of access to records for any amount of time could certainly cause issues with clients and regulators who may be wanting to review emails to substantiate investment recommendations, confirm communications, examine client/adviser discussions, and so on. Therefore, by not adequately fulfilling his responsibility to maintain appropriate records for RMI, Ianetta is in violation of Standard V(C), so the best answer is A.

The facts of this case are based on a 2013 enforcement action by the US Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.



Photo by Torsten Dettlaff from Pexels

© 2018 CFA Institute. All rights reserved. You may copy and distribute this content, without modification and for non-commercial purposes, provided you attribute the content to CFA Institute and retain this copyright notice. This case was written as a basis for discussion and is not prescriptive of how a business situation or professional conduct matter should or should not be handled or addressed. Certain characters mentioned are fictional to facilitate discussion, and any resemblance to actual persons is coincidental.

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