Federal Court Holds That Hedge Fund Marketing and Brokering Hedge Fund Management Company Transactions Are Different Services for Contracting and Compensation Purposes

The Hedge Fund Law Report previously has reported on a case (which is not the only case of its kind) standing for the incontrovertible proposition that it is preferable for ethical actors to enter into written, as opposed to exclusively oral, hedge fund marketing agreements.  See “Pair of District Court Opinions Illustrates the Difficulty of Enforcing a Purported Oral Agreement Between a Third-Party Marketer and a Hedge Fund Manager,” Hedge Fund Law Report, Vol. 3, No. 49 (Dec. 17, 2010).  A recent federal district court decision refines the analysis by emphasizing the importance of identifying the contemplated services in the relevant written agreement with as much specificity as possible.  Specifically, the decision indicates that hedge fund marketing – efforts to get people or entities to invest in hedge funds – and brokering transactions between hedge fund management companies are two different categories of services.  See “Buying a Majority Interest in a Hedge Fund Manager: An Acquirer’s Primer on Key Structuring and Negotiating Issues,” Hedge Fund Law Report, Vol. 4, No. 17 (May 20, 2011).  The same person or entity may do both, but a person or entity that retains another person to perform one of these categories of services does not necessarily retain that person to perform the other category of service.

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