From Brian Rubin in NSCP Currents: 

During this year’s annual FINRA conference, a panel of officials announced that in connection with retaining and supervising electronic messages, firms might have to begin reviewing emojis to determine whether they constitute reportable customer complaints.

FINRA’s proclamation appears to be problematic for firms. First, FINRA didn’t announce whether technology exists to find, let alone, translate emojis.  Second, emojis are constantly being added.  Finally, the meaning of emojis depends on context and the “space-time continuum,” including the generation bracket of the sender and recipient.  For example, the thumbs up emoji 👍used to mean, “good job,” but for Gen Z-ers, it’s more of an insult about something you botched, rather than a positive sign, and sometimes it means, “sure, whatever” in response to something you’ve said.  Without industry consultation about these issues, it’s easy to predict what will happen next: 😡.

Read more here.

SEC 40 Act lawyers and those in the ESG space will want to take note of Commissioner Uyeda’s speech published on Jan 27 (SEC.gov | ESG: Everything Everywhere All at Once) in which he lays out an adviser’s fiduciary duty as a battleground for future discussion about ESG investments.  Uyeda says “… an adviser can only pursue an ESG investment strategy if the client expresses a desire to pursue such a strategy after receiving full and fair disclosure regarding the salient features of the strategy, including the strategy’s risk and return profile.” It will be interesting to see if Chair Gensler looks for an opportunity to respond to Uyeda’s remarks.  Don’t be surprised if we see remarks by Chair Gensler that address an adviser’s duty more generally and not just in connection with established an ESG investment strategy. Maybe something along the lines of yes, an adviser can only pursue an ESG investment strategy where a client expresses such a desire, but as a general matter all advisers should be at least considering ESG factors as they do other important data points when making an investment.  Lots more to come……