Sidley Austin LLP recently hosted a conference in its New York office entitled “Private Funds 2013: Developments and Opportunities.”  At the conference, Sidley partners discussed various structuring, regulatory, operational and transactional developments impacting private funds and their managers.  The Hedge Fund Law Report is publishing a three-part series of articles covering the most important insights arising out of the conference.  In this first installment, we summarize the parts of the conference dealing with recent developments in fund structuring, single-investor funds, first loss capital arrangements, side letter terms, hard wiring of feeder funds for ERISA purposes, liquidity terms, fee terms, founder share classes and expense allocations and expense caps.  The second article in the series will discuss recent developments in SEC examinations and enforcement (including a discussion of compliance policy violations, valuation practices, allocation of investment opportunities, insider trading issues, use of political intelligence firms and expert networks, the SEC’s new policy requiring admissions of wrongdoing and best practices for compliance); seeding arrangements; and fund mergers and acquisitions (including a discussion of key terms and negotiating points for such transactions).  The third article will provide an update on regulatory developments impacting fund managers, including recent issues involving commodity pool operator registration and regulation, implementation and compliance with the JOBS Act and derivatives reforms.