The Securities and Exchange Commission is worried that investment advisers are not taking the agency's custody responsibilities seriously enough, said Carlo di Florio, director of the SEC's Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations. Many advisers were either unprepared for the custody rules or had failed to recognize that they had custody, diFlorio told a professional conference, days after a risk alert issued by the SEC found that one-third of the investment advisers that the agency examined had compliance problems with the custody rule. "It's a big worry," said di Florio, who was speaking at the Investment Advisers Association's compliance conference. "The custody rule was put in place to get the Madoff type issues, to make sure that investors are protected from the risk of fraud. Anything that is not complying with that rule (is a concern)." The SEC adopted its custody rule in December 2009 in response to Bernard Madoff's $65 billion Ponzi scheme. The rule seeks to
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