Curriculum Guide · Courses

Professors Barry Barbash and James Silk

LL.M Seminar 845 (cross-listed) | 2 credit hours

This course will provide an in-depth look at the structure of, and law applicable to private funds, which are pooled investment vehicles designed to operate outside of the scope of the U.S. Federal securities laws. Among the investment vehicles to be studied are hedge funds, private equity funds, and venture capital funds. The course will begin with an examination of the exclusions and exceptions under the U.S. Federal securities laws on which private funds and their managers seek to rely in operating beyond the reach of those laws. The course will then turn to a consideration of the ever-increasing regulations from private funds formed under U.S. law and their sponsors and managers cannot escape. The next segment of the course will center on business, tax and marketing considerations faced when organizing and operating private funds. The last segment will include a “how-to” class devoted to the drafting of the documents underlying private funds and a class examining “hot button” issues of the day for private fund sponsors and managers. [Formerly titled "Non-U.S. Regulated Investment Vehicles" and “Hedge Funds, Private Equity Funds and Other Similar Investment Vehicles”]

Prerequisite: Securities Regulation.

In the event that there is a waitlist for this class, the professor reserves the right to favor students on the waitlist who either attended the first class or who participated in his fall semester class, Mutual Funds, Investment Advisors and Other Regulated Money Managers.