Bill Reilly

By providing services to a wide array of securities industry clients, both large and small, Oyster’s consultants have gained extensive regulatory and compliance knowledge and experience. This expertise places Oyster Consulting at the forefront of securities consulting firms.

Bill is an innovative and respected financial services professional with over 35 years of consulting and regulatory experience. Bill leverages his industry expertise and relationships with state and federal regulators and self-regulatory organizations to guide broker-dealers, investment advisers and law firms providing legal representation through both proactive and reactive regulatory processes and compliance issues.

Expertise

Oyster Consulting:

• Compliance support and services for broker-dealers include: 3120/3130 Reviews, Policies and Procedures creation and updates, Heightened Supervision Reviews, Branch Office Examinations, Senior/Vulnerable Adult Program Compliance, Suitability Reviews, Training, AML Reviews, Email Reviews, Reg BI Support, New Product Review and Employee Personal Trading.
• Compliance support and services for Investment Advisers include: Annual Compliance Reviews, Policies and Procedures creation and updates, Investment Adviser Registration, Senior/Vulnerable Adult Program Compliance, Suitability Reviews, Training, Advertisement Reviews and New Product Reviews.
• Conducts independent, third party reviews for broker-dealers and investment advisers.
• Retained as an expert in two arbitration cases to provide testimony that a broker-dealer had conducted adequate and ongoing due diligence for an investment adviser that was executing transactions for advisory clients via the broker-dealer’s trading platform.
• Retained as an expert to provide testimony in an arbitration that a broker-dealer failed to follow procedures governing the use of Letters of Authorization.
• Retained as an expert in an arbitration to provide an opinion on the supervisory system of a broker-dealer and whether it was consistent with FINRA’s rules and regulations regarding the supervision of a registered representative.
• Retained in conjunction with a review by a registered investment adviser to update the firm’s policies and procedures for registering investment adviser representatives with states and resolve unregistered activity with state securities regulators. Only one of 11 states which could have initiated formal action did so, resolving the matter for a minimal fine against the firm.
• Retained by law firms to assist broker-dealers, investment advisers and individuals in regulatory matters subject to potential cease and desist orders, fines, denial, restriction, or revocation of registration, negotiate beneficial resolutions for the client(s).
• Retained by a law firm to help a broker-dealer successfully obtain a waiver from the prohibition of concurrent dual registration of registered representatives with more than one broker-dealer from the Massachusetts Secretary of State.

Florida Office of Financial Regulation

• Responsible for all aspects of the broker-dealer and investment adviser examination program, requiring the supervision of 50+ staff that conducted examinations, investigations, and handled investor complaints.
• Co-creator and administrator for the Disciplinary Guidelines Rule and Sanctions Matrix for the Division of Securities, Office of Financial Regulation
• Led and participated in numerous national examination sweeps including problem firms and individuals, heightened supervision, books and records, free lunch seminars, penny stocks, auction rate securities, and structured products.
• Appointed by NASAA to be the state’s representative to work with the industry and SEC on the amendments to the books and records requirements of SEC Rules 17(a)-3 and 17(a)-4, which became effective in May 2003.
• Appointed by NASAA to be the initial state representative to the Content Committee for the Securities Industry/Regulatory Council on Continuing Education. Created written scenarios for the Series 101, 201 and 206.

Career Highlights

• Director, Oyster Consulting, LLC
• Chief, Bureau of Securities Regulation, Division of Securities, Florida Office of Financial Regulation
• Chair, NASAA Broker-Dealer Operations Committee