Doug Scheidt

Doug Scheidt

Senior Independent Advisor

Doug served as Chief Counsel to the SEC’s Division of Investment Management for 21 years, until his retirement in 2018. For nearly three decades, he directed the Division’s enforcement liaison program, overseeing all of the Division’s enforcement-related activities.

The Division of Investment Management is the SEC Division charged with regulating investment advisers and investment companies.  He provided critical counsel and assistance on numerous SEC rulemakings, technical assistance to Congress on legislation, and has managed the Division’s international program and its dealings with foreign regulators.

During his tenure at the SEC, Mr. Scheidt provided legal and policy guidance for the $82 trillion asset management industry on a wide variety of matters, with a focus on regulatory compliance and the legal duties of investment advisers and fund governance directors, including valuation, distribution, fiduciary duty, affiliated transactions and portfolio management, under the Investment Advisers Act and Investment Company Act. He also directed the Division’s responses to the financial crisis and the late trading and market timing scandals.

From 2014 until his retirement, he oversaw the Division’s exemptive application program, which issues orders granting exemptive relief under the Acts. Mr. Scheidt, who had been the Chief Counsel of the Division of Investment Management since 1997, served as an Associate Director (Compliance, Financial Analysis, Public Utilities, Investment Adviser and Investment Company Regulations) and as the Assistant Director of the Office of Enforcement Liaison.  He is a Lecturer on Investment Management Regulations at Howard University School of Law.

In 2017, Mr. Scheidt received the Philip A. Loomis, Jr. Award for outstanding legal scholarship, analysis and draftsmanship, and over the years received six Law and Policy Awards, the Chair’s Award for Excellence, the Capital Markets Award, the Excellence in Information Technology Award, the Labor-Management Relations Award, and the Supervisory Excellence Award.

Before joining the Division of Investment Management in 1991, Mr. Scheidt served as Vice President and Associate General Counsel at The Boston Company Advisors, Inc., and as an attorney in private practice.  He also served as an attorney and Special Counsel in the SEC’s Office of the General Counsel.  Mr. Scheidt began his legal career as a law clerk to the Honorable Martin D. Van Oosterhout of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

Qualifications

Academic

Drake University Law School
J.D., Order of the Coif

Northwestern University

B.A. cum laude

Disclaimer
A&O Shearman was formed on May 1, 2024 by the combination of Shearman & Sterling LLP and Allen & Overy LLP and their respective affiliates (the legacy firms). Any matters referred to above may include matters undertaken by one or more of the legacy firms rather than A&O Shearman.