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Phil Goldstein, the hedge fund manager who famously derailed the SEC’s attempt to require fund registration, is back with a vengeance - as the SEC couldn’t fail to note, and is now preparing to sue the US regulator to lift its ban on hedge fund marketing and advertising, reports the FT.

The long-standing US ban on funds’ soliciting money from the public has been interpreted to mean a hedge fund should release only very limited information about itself. This interpretation has come under pressure as hedge funds have grown rapidly and become widely covered in the media.

Goldstein said:

We want to be able to have a website like any other business. The only websites required to pre-qualify people are hedge funds and pornography . . . gun shops are allowed to advertise, the Massachusetts state lottery is allowed to have a website. We want to be treated like any other business.

Goldstein, who runs the Bulldog Investors fund, plans to file in the next few weeks in the Washington DC district court, asking for a declaratory judgement that the SEC rule should be struck out. He had earlier written to the SEC asking it to strike out the ban and threatening court action if he did not hear back by Friday (which he didn’t).

The action stems from a move last year by William Galvin, the Massachusetts securities regulator, who lodged an administrative complaint against Goldstein for disclosing information to an unqualified investor, when he emailed performance details of his fund in response to a query. Hence, Goldstein is campaigning this time for the broader - and more noble ideal - of freedom of speech, rather than the action he took two years ago against the SEC’s attempts to bring in an onerous hedge-fund registration process. Citing the First Amendment, he argues he has the right to post such data on his website.

Hedge funds are not specifically prohibited from advertising, but under US rules only registered investment funds, such as mutual funds, can solicit money from the public.

It’s all true, says Fintag, though not with a particularly sympathetic view of Goldstein’s campaign. “The main reason why hedge fund reporting is on the whole so inaccurate is because the media has such little information about what goes on,” it notes, adding with typical modesty: “This is why Fintag is so successful”.

Of course, he adds, if the SEC (FSA et al) allow the hedge fund industry to market, promote and advertise, “then no more will I be needed”.