As a registered investment adviser, McCurdy & Andrew Investments, LLC. must comply with the Privacy Rule of the Gramm Leach-Bliley Act (GLB Act) as administered and enforced by the Federal Trade Commission, which requires state registered advisers to adopt policies and procedures to protect the "non-public personal information" of natural person consumers and customers and to disclose to such persons policies and procedures for protecting that information.
McCurdy & Andrew Investments, LLC. must also comply with the California Financial Information Privacy Act (SB1) if the firm does business with California consumers.
Background
Regulation S-P / Privacy Rule
The purpose of these regulatory requirements and privacy policies and procedures is to provide administrative, technical and physical safeguards, which assist employees in maintaining the confidentiality of non-public personal information ("NPI") collected from the consumers and customers of an investment adviser. All NPI, whether relating to an adviser's current or former clients, is subject to these privacy policies and procedures. Any doubts about the confidentiality of client information must be resolved in favor of confidentiality.
For these purposes, NPI includes non-public "personally identifiable financial information" plus any list, description or grouping of customers that is derived from non-public personally identifiable financial information. Such information may include personal financial and account information, information relating to services performed for or transactions entered into on beha lf of clients, advice provided by McCurdy & Andrew Investments, LLC. to clients, and data or analyses derived from such NPI.
Regulation S-P implements the GLB Act's requirements with respect to privacy of consumer nonpublic personal information for registered investment advisers, investment companies, and broker-dealers (each, a "financial institution"). Among other provisions, financial institutions are required to provide an initial notice to each customer that sets forth the financial institution's policies and practices with respect to the collection, disclosure and protection of customers' nonpublic personal information to both affiliated and nonaffiliated third parties. Thereafter, as long as the customer relationship continues to exist, the financial institution is required to provide an annual privacy disclosure to its customers describing the financial institution's privacy policies and practices unless it meets the requirements for the annual delivery exception as set forth below.
Significantly, on December 4, 2015, the President signed the Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act (the "FAST Act") into law. Among other provisions, the FAST Act includes an amendment of the consumer privacy provisions within the GLB Act. The amendment, which went into effect immediately, now provides an exception to the annual privacy notice distribution requirement if the financial institution meets the following two criteria: (i) the financial institution does not share nonpub lic personal information with nonaffiliated third parties (other than as permitted under certain enumerated exceptions) and (ii) the financial institution's policies and practices regarding disclosure of nonpublic personal information have not changed since the last distribution of its policies and practices to its customers.
Responsibility
Dennis McCurdy is responsible for reviewing, maintaining and enforcing these policies and procedures to ensure meeting McCurdy & Andrew Investments, LLC's client privacy goal and objectives while at a minimum ensuring compliance with applicable federal and state laws and regulations. Dennis McCurdy may recommend to the firm's principal(s) any disciplinary or other action as appropriate. Dennis McCurdy is also responsible for distributing these policies and procedures to employees and conducting appropriate employee training to ensure employee adherence to these policies and procedures.
Procedure
McCurdy & Andrew Investments, LLC. has adopted various procedures to implement the firm's policy and conducts reviews to monitor and ensure the firm's policy is observed, implemented properly and amended or updated, as appropriate, which include the following:
