The Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday sanctioned Christopher Keil Hicks and two investment advisers he owned for failing to disclose potential conflicts of interest with clients, including a revenue-sharing arrangement with a fund distributor. The case stems from a sweep by the SEC Enforcement Division's asset-management unit and the San Francisco regional office to monitor arrangements between advisers and broker-dealers. Revenue sharing involves paying or providing other benefits to financial intermediaries to recommend that their clients or customers buy certain investment products. The arrangements raise potential conflicts of interest and must at least be disclosed, the SEC and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority have said. The current sweep may be new, but regulatory interest in revenue sharing dates at least to the mutual-fund scandals of nine years ago, and the SEC's Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations and FINRA have intermittently warned
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