SEC review reveals web of payments between funds and brokerages

There has always been speculations and suspicions about active fund managers and their high management fees and expenses charged.  This may have resulted in the USA's SEC review on payments between funds and brokerages which you can read at this URL...
   
SEC review reveals web of payments between funds and brokerages
Final analysis could lead to an overhaul of the industry

[NEW YORK] The tens of millions of dollars in annual fees that mutual fund companies pay to brokerages and their financial advisers to encourage sale of certain funds to retail investors are growing in size and variety, but the phenomenon is largely invisible to investors.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission, which 18 months ago began a review of fees paid among mutual fund advisers, fund companies and the brokerage firms that sell the funds, has uncovered a complex geometry of payments that may lead to sales of certain funds at the expense of others and is not clearly disclosed under regulators' current requirements, according to a person familiar with the review.

A final analysis of the fee infrastructure and disclosure holes is expected to be completed by year-end, and could lead to an overhaul of how the industry pays for sales and how the brokerage industry discloses the bounty it collects.
Past attempts by the SEC and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority to improve disclosure and end certain incentive payments have faltered.