Paul Atkins, one of the five commissioners on the Securities and Exchange Commission, said he “would be very surprised” if the SEC appealed the ruling striking down hedge fund registration. To which, Philip Goldstein, the hedgie who’s lawsuit killed the rule, responded in Bloomberg News, “There is no basis for an appeal,” calling the effort a waste of money. “What the SEC has spent on this exercise in illegal rule-making is enormous. Why throw more money on it?” The SEC has yet to decide which course of action to take, and all agency spokesman Michael Gonzales could say is that Atkins is “free to give his opinion.” While the agency mulls its next move, The New York Times is praising the HF approach of the U.K.’s Financial Services Authority as a model of regulatory prudence. Then again, the business model across the pond is somewhat different. For one thing, in the U.K. one needs to complete an authorization process to operate and meet a requirement of putting up 13 weeks worth of expenses as regulatory capital, London lawyer Timothy Spangler told the Times. In the U.S., he noted, “you can wake up in the morning and somewhere between the bed, the bathroom and the mirror, you can decide to be a hedge fund.”
