Charles Lerner

Charles Lerner is a principal of Fiduciary Compliance Associates LLC, which provides full-service compliance support to investment advisers and private investment funds. During the first part of his career, Charles was an attorney and special counsel in the Division of Enforcement at the US Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington, DC where he investigated and litigated complex and precedent setting cases for violations of the federal securities laws. He then became the director of enforcement at the Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration at the US Department of Labor (the predecessor agency to the Employee Benefits Security Administration) which has regulatory and enforcement responsibilities for the fiduciary responsibility, reporting and prohibited transactions provisions of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. ERISA is the federal law that regulates private sector pension, health and welfare plans. He directed a nationwide enforcement program that conducted civil and criminal investigations for violations by fiduciaries (including investment advisers) and service providers to employee benefit plans. In recent years Charles has been a managing director at major banking and investment advisory institutions (Bankers Trust Company, Deutsche Bank and BlackRock Financial Management) and chief compliance officer of the advisers to private investment funds at UBS AG and Duff Capital Advisors. Charles is an attorney and graduated from Cornell University and Brooklyn Law School. Charles was lead editor for The US Private Equity Fund Compliance Guide, which was published by PEI in 2010.