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Pay to Play

BY Joseph F. Savage, Jr., Nicholas Pilchak
December 21, 2010

Traditionally, you might have gotten the call from an investment adviser client who had provided lucrative contracts to a state investment officer's friend, after the state officer placed an even more lucrative investment with the adviser's firm. Then you would try to work your way through the government's latest attempt to address the reputed “pay to play” tradition that surrounds placement agents working with public pension funds.

Today, the phone call may come from your own law partner wondering how she can possibly be under investigation for assisting a firm client in obtaining a meeting with a public pension fund that did not lead to an investment and for which the firm got no money. As shown by the Manatt Phelps settlement in New York (discussed below), the world has changed radically for anyone trying to obtain investments from public pension funds.

Historically, relatively low-profile “placement agents” facilitated public fund investments based on personal and political relationships that provided access to those who control public pension fund investments. This role grew along with the expanded menu of alternative investments.

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