April 18, 1990
TO: STATE SECURITIES MEMBERS NO. 8-90
SMALL FUNDS COMMITTEE NO. 7-90
RE: OHIO - NEW RECORDS RETENTION SCHEDULE
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The Institute has recently been advised that the Ohio
Securities Division implemented a new records retention schedule
that may affect mutual funds that originally registered
securities from October 1975 to August 1978. During this period,
mutual funds were allowed to register a definite amount of
securities to be sold without an expiration date limitation,
i.e., a "good until sold" registration statement.
The new records retention schedule will be an eight year
period, and as such, the Division will not be maintaining records
for companies that registered during the above-referenced time
period. Therefore, a possibility exists that a fund may still
have registered securities that have not been sold. The Division
believes that the number of funds with such unsold registered
securities is less than a dozen and would like these funds to
voluntarily register to avoid possible enforcement action. For
example, since all records prior to 1982 will be destroyed, the
Division feels that if it receives an inquiry from the public as
to whether a particular mutual fund is registered with the
Division, and no record exists (even though the fund may still
have registered unsold securities), the Division could
conceivably initiate an investigation of the fund based on
unregistered sales of securities in Ohio.
Patricia Louie
Assistant General Counsel