Mr Mark D Perlow > Dechert LLP > San Francisco, United States > Lawyer Profile

Dechert LLP Offices

Dechert LLP
45 Fremont Street
26th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
United States
Visit website 1 415 262 4500 1 415 262 4555

Mr Mark D Perlow

Mark D Perlow photo
+1 415 262 4530 mark.perlow@dechert.com

Work Department

Financial Services and Investment Management

Position

Partner

Career

Mark D. Perlow represents mutual funds, hedge fund managers, fund independent directors, investment advisers, and broker-dealers on a broad range of regulatory and transactional matters. Mr. Perlow has extensive experience structuring, forming and reorganizing mutual funds and hedge funds; preparing and negotiating fund documents and agreements; and assisting clients on adviser and fund mergers, acquisitions, and adoptions. Mr. Perlow has counseled both fund sponsors and fund investors on regulatory aspects of and issues posed by alternative funds, derivatives, short selling, market structure, and exchange-traded funds. He also advises investment adviser and fund sponsors on fintech matters, including marketplace lending and online investment advice.

Having served as senior counsel in both the SEC’s Office of the General Counsel and the Division of Enforcement, Mr. Perlow has considerable experience with SEC rule-making, submissions, enforcement, examinations and compliance activity. Mr. Perlow regularly assists funds, broker-dealers, and investment managers on agreements relating to regulation and distribution, and represents them before the SEC and FINRA in connection with registration, exemptive applications, no-action and interpretive requests, enforcement actions, examinations, and transactional and disclosure filings. He has also counseled clients on compliance issues regarding the Dodd-Frank and Sarbanes-Oxley Acts.

Mr. Perlow serves as managing partner of the firm’s San Francisco office. He is a frequent author and speaker on securities law and investment management topics. Currently, he is an adjunct lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley Law School. Prior to joining Dechert, he served as a partner in the San Francisco office of another international law firm.

Memberships

  • American Bar Association, Committee on Federal Regulation of Securities, Subcommittee on Investment Companies and Investment Advisers, Task Force on Investment Company Use of Derivatives and Leverage, and the Drafting Committee for Comment Letter on Money Market Fund Reform
  • Federal Bar Association
  • HFC, West Coast Committee
  • West Coast ’40 Acts Group

Education

  • University of California, Berkeley, A.B., 1986, summa cum laude
  • University of Oxford, M.A., 1988, Newton-Tatum Scholar
  • Yale Law School, J.D., 1991, Executive Editor for the Yale Journal on Regulation, Olin Fellow in Law, Economics and Public Policy

Lawyer Rankings

United States > Investment fund formation and management > Mutual/registered/exchange-traded funds

The blue chip client base of Dechert LLP‘s investment funds department appreciate its ‘great depth in its mutual fund practice‘. The firm is a strong choice for the gamut of issues in the space, covering formation and fund raising, day-to-day operations, regulatory compliance, and all potential disputes. The sizeable practice includes many practitioners with experience as in-house counsel and regulators, and clients include funds, advisers, boards of directors and audit committees, independent directors, broker-dealers, insurance companies, and banks. Recent work has included a number of conversions from mutual funds to exchange-traded funds, following the national trend, and the regulatory side of the practice has been busy with new SEC regulations. Christopher Harvey oversees the practice from the firm’s Boston office and is a leading figure in the market. Alongside him, Christopher Christian is a key contact for US and European asset managers and investment funds, and John O’Hanlon is a regulatory expert. In New York, Allison Fumai stands out for her ETF expertise, while Washington DC is another key location, where Megan Johnson and Douglas Dick are based. San Francisco-based Mark Perlow is recommended by clients as ‘one of the most respected mutual fund/investment adviser attorneys‘.

United States > Finance > Fintech

Dechert LLP has made good headway into the market with a combination of expertise in cryptocurrencies and digital assets, and traditional finance products. The firm has developed a good niche in related investment fund work, with clients such as Franklin Templeton instructing the team to assist with the launch of its tokenized money market fund. Lead partners include Timothy Spangler in Los Angeles, who works at the crossover between fintech and alternative investment management. Respectively based in San Francisco and Washington DC, Mark Perlow and Susan Grafton are highly experienced in regulatory matters, while Karen Neuman (Washington DC) and Brenda Sharton (Boston) are lead contacts for data privacy and cybersecurity. The firm also recruited New York partner Jay Southgate from Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, who has a strong focus on consumer lending and fintech.

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