• Dechert’s financial services group has an extensive track record of trail-blazing and innovation. Our lawyers:

    • Obtained the first SEC exemption to permit a fund to charge a contingent deferred sales charge and Rule 12b-1 distribution fee in place of a front-end sales charge, the prototype for all “B” shares offered today by mutual funds.
    • Organized the first U.S.-registered closed-end investment company to invest in an “emerging market,” and the first U.S.-registered closed-end fund to invest exclusively in non-U.S. debt obligations.
    • Obtained SEC exemptive relief to create the first operating “open-end interval fund,” a fund that issues redeemable securities that are redeemed less frequently than daily.
    • Obtained “no-action” or interpretive relief from the SEC addressing a number of novel issues, several of which represent the “state-of-the-law” in particular areas. (One such letter established the procedures used by all U.S.-registered funds investing in Russia to ensure the safekeeping of their Russian securities.)
    • Pioneered development of the registered “fund of hedge funds.”
    • Organized the first unit investment trusts to invest in equity securities.
    • Effected the first conversion of a unit investment trust to a management investment company form of operation.
    • Organized the first successful operational “fund of funds.” Represented the independent trustees of the first U.S. “master/feeder” funds and later organized one of the first “master/feeder” funds. Successfully submitted a rulemaking petition to the SEC to exempt from SEC registration certain Canadian mutual funds.
    • Served as the founding organizers of the first conference on the responsibilities of independent directors/trustees of mutual funds (for The American Law Institute/American Bar Association Committee on Professional Education).