The following Letter Type A, or variations thereof, was submitted by individuals or entities.

Letter Type A:

Dear SEC Chairman and Board Members:

   I have a number of friends and/or business associates in the
investment banking/financial services industry and have read about the
pay-to-play scandals affecting the New York Common pension fund. I
agree that some steps should be taken to try and curb the
opportunities for corrupt individuals to perpetrate these types of
activities. However, I strongly disagree with your proposed solution
of banning an entire industry of placement agents as it is both highly
ineffective and a gross injustice. When some notable baseball players
are caught taking steroids, you dont see the government banning an
entire baseball team or all professional baseball players, or when the
whole Madoff scandal hit, the government didnt elect to ban all New
York investment managers or all investment managers across the United
States. The right approach is to set up a system to regulate the
issue, identify the perpetrators and enforce the penalties.

   The concept that placement agents have the monopoly on corrupt
behavior and are the sole instigators of pay-to-play schemes is
fundamentally flawed and prejudice for the following reasons: a) like
corruption in any industry, illegal schemes of this type are the
result of a very small number of individuals, and b) without the
complicit illegal actions of government employees and investment
managers, the pay-to-play scheme could NEVER be effectuated.

   Investment bankers/placement agents have played a value-added role in
the private equity investment management business for many, many years
and thus, the SECs proposed ban of their entire professional industry
should be prohibited because:

   Public pension funds represent a majority of all the capital invested
in the private equity investment management business and eliminating
access to this magnitude of capital will devastate the placement agent
business
The vast majority of emerging, small and middle-market investment
managers rely extensively on placement agents to gain access to
pension fund capital. Without these services, many of these companies
will simply not survive or be forced to operate at a untenable
disadvantage
Pension funds will be unnecessarily harmed because without placement
agents, there will be a dramatic reduction in their access to
potential opportunities from emerging, small and middle-market
investment managers
Pension funds will no longer be able to use placement agents to help
them identify, pre-screen and evaluate potential investment manager
candidates
The placement agent and investment management industry will incur
dramatic job losses

   As I understand it, there are a number of large and highly
sophisticated public pension funds, such as California State Teachers
Retirement System, California Public Employees Retirement System,
Texas Teachers Retirement System, Massachusetts PRIM, State of
Wisconsin, etc., that have adopted extensive licensing and regulatory
policies addressing pay-to-play schemes. It is also my understanding
that the California State Treasurer, Bill Lockyer, has presented
legislation on this issue that mirrors the fair and rational policies
put forth by many of these pension plans to protect their rights to
continue to use and regulate the services of placement agents and
investment managers. I believe it is very important to note that none
of these policies or proposed legislation includes any intention to
eliminate the use of placement agents. In fact, just the opposite is
true. It is clear that by adopting these policies these state run
pension plans recognize the issue, value those services provided by
placement agents and have taken the necessary and rational steps to
eliminate any improprieties from occurring. If the SEC regulations are
enacted as proposed, they would render the policies of various state
pension funds void and/or moot and circumvent any U.S. public pension
fund from independently charting their own investment course.
Something that I doubt the beneficiaries of these pension plans want
or that the SEC should take responsibility for.

   I strongly urge the SEC to eliminate the ban on placement agents and
instead embrace the following regulatory oversight suggestions:

   All placement agents, investment advisers and consultants are treated
exactly the same regarding prohibited political contributions i.e., a
two-year ban on doing business with any governmental agency to which a
prohibited political contribution is made.
SEC ban any investment manager, consultant or placement agent from
making, or soliciting to make, any contributions to any government
entity from which they are soliciting business.
SEC incorporates more regulation and oversight of government employees
who control (or have influencing control over) investment decision
making or alternatively, require these governmental entities to revise
their investment decision-making structures to reduce the opportunity
for such individuals of influence to perpetrate pay-to-play schemes.
SEC requires the disclosure of any compensation made to a placement
agent by an investment adviser, including any political contributions
Placement agents are prohibited from soliciting any institutional
investors, including public pension plans, unless it is done by: i)
placement agents properly licensed with SEC and FINRA and ii) full
time employees operating through a fully licensed Broker Dealer and
supervised by a properly licensed securities principal.

   Thank you for considering my views on this very important matter.

http://www.sec.gov/comments/comments/s7-18-09/s71809-78.htm