LD 509
pg. 30
Page 29 of 183 An Act To Adopt the Maine Uniform Securities Act Page 31 of 183
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LR 441
Item 1

 
other similar title, designation, or certification alone does not
require registration as an investment adviser.

 
Sections 102(15)(A) through (H) are exclusions from the term
"investment adviser." An excluded person can be held liable for
fraud in providing investment advice, see Section 502, but would
not be subject to the registration and regulatory provisions in
Article 4.

 
Sections 102(15)(A) and (E) are new and recognize that
investment adviser representatives and federal covered investment
advisers are separately treated in this Act. See definitions in
Sections 102(6) and 102(16); registration and exemptions in
Sections 404-405.

 
Sections 102(15)(B), (C), and (G) are substantively identical
to the 1956 Act, RUSA, and the Investment Advisers Act of 1940.
The Official Comment to the 1956 Act Section 401(f) quoted an
opinion of the Securities and Exchange Commission General Counsel
in Investment Advisers Act Release 2 on the meaning of "special
compensation" included in Section 102(15)(C):

 
[This clause] amounts to a recognition that brokers and

 
dealers commonly give a certain amount of advice to their
customers in the course of their regular business, and that
it would be inappropriate to bring them within the scope of
the Investment Advisers Act merely because of this aspect of
their business. On the other hand, that portion of clause
[(C)] which refers to 'special compensation' amounts to an
equally clear recognition that a broker or dealer who is
specially compensated for the rendition of advice should be
considered an investment adviser and not be excluded from
the purview of the Act merely because he is also engaged in
effecting market transactions in securities. . . . The
essential distinction to be borne in mind in considering
borderline cases . . . is the distinction between
compensation for advice itself and compensation for services
of another character to which advice is merely incidental.

 
Similarly, other broker-dealer employees such as research
analysts who receive no special compensation from third parties
for investment advice would not be required to register as
investment advisers.

 
The 1956 Act definition added the word "paid" in Section
401(f)(4) to the counterpart exclusion in Section 202(a)(11) of
the Investment Advisers Act "to emphasize," as the Official
Comment explained, "that a person who periodically distributes a
'tipster sheet' free as a way to get paying clients is not
excluded from the definition as a 'publisher.'"


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