Ameriprise 2015 Annual Report Download - page 40

Employees
At December 31, 2015, we had approximately 13,000 employees, including over 2,000 employee advisors (which does
not include our franchisee advisors, who are not employees of our company, but includes advisors employed in the AAC).
We are not subject to collective bargaining agreements, and we believe that our employee relations are strong.
Intellectual Property
We rely on a combination of contractual rights and copyright, trademark, patent and trade secret laws to establish and
protect our intellectual property. In the United States and other jurisdictions, we have established and registered or filed
applications to register certain service marks and brand names that we consider important to the marketing of our
products and services, including but not limited to Ameriprise Financial, Columbia Management, Threadneedle, RiverSource
and Columbia Threadneedle Investments. We have in the past and will in the future take action to establish and protect
our intellectual property.
Regulation
Virtually all aspects of our business, including the activities of the parent company and our subsidiaries, are subject to
various federal, state and foreign laws and regulations. These laws and regulations provide broad regulatory, administrative
and enforcement powers to supervisory agencies and other bodies, including U.S. federal and state regulatory agencies,
foreign government agencies or regulatory bodies and U.S. and foreign securities exchanges. The costs of complying with
such laws and regulations can be significant, and the consequences for the failure to comply may include civil or criminal
charges, fines, censure, the suspension of individual employees, restrictions on or prohibitions from engaging in certain
lines of business (or in certain states or countries), revocation of certain registrations as well as reputational damage. We
have made and expect to continue to make significant investments in our compliance processes, enhancing policies,
procedures and oversight to monitor our compliance with the numerous legal and regulatory requirements applicable to our
business.
The regulatory environment in which our businesses operate remains subject to change and heightened regulatory scrutiny.
Regulatory developments, both in and outside of the U.S., have resulted or are expected to result in greater regulatory
oversight and internal compliance obligations for firms across the financial services industry. In addition, we continue to
see enhanced legislative and regulatory interest regarding retirement investing, and we will continue to closely review and
monitor any legislative or regulatory proposals and changes. These legal and regulatory changes have impacted and may in
the future impact the manner in which we are regulated and the manner in which we operate and govern our businesses.
The discussion and overview set forth below provides a general framework of the laws and regulations impacting our
businesses. Certain of our subsidiaries may be subject to one or more elements of this regulatory framework depending on
the nature of their business, the products and services they provide and the geographic locations in which they operate. To
the extent the discussion includes references to statutory and regulatory provisions, it is qualified in its entirety by
reference to these statutory and regulatory provisions and is current only as of the date of this report.
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