Market Regulation

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As mid-year 2018 approaches, we have updated our brief deck summarizing the leadership and staffing changes among federal financial regulators, including announced nominations and resignations and expiring terms.  The first slide summaries the state of play for the principals, and the later slides provide a deeper dive on an agency-by-agency … Read More

CFTC Chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo and CFTC Chief Economist Bruce Tuckman released a White Paper on April 26, 2018 that reflects the authors’ personal views on the need for swaps regulatory reforms in the United States in five key areas:

  1. swap execution on swap execution facilities (“SEFs”);
  2. trade
… Read More

Market participants are undertaking significant work to prepare for a transition away from LIBOR. This publication focuses on the legal framework and other issues related to fallback language. To give a more tangible sense of what may be at stake and the efforts required to transition, it provides in-depth analyses … Read More

A Cryptocurrency and DLT Newsletter – April 5, 2018

Authored by Jai R. Massari, Christophe Perchet, Byron B. Rooney, Daniel Arroche, Trevor I. Kiviat, Daniela Dekhtyar-McCarthy and Andrew Ruben

Market Developments

Web Platforms Continue to Ban ICO-Related Advertisements

The SEC increasingly is focusing its enforcement authority not only on companies … Read More

In the first major trading and markets initiative under SEC Chairman Jay Clayton, on March 14, 2018, the SEC proposed to establish a transaction fee pilot program to study the effects of maker-taker fee structures. A pilot study was initially recommended by the SEC’s Equity Market Structure Advisory Committee in … Read More

For the first time, the CFTC has fined a company for poor cybersecurity practices that resulted in a third-party breach of the company’s information systems.  This development is consistent with an increasing trend of regulators holding companies responsible for the cybersecurity failures of third-party service providers.

AMP Global Clearing LLC … Read More

Responding to a 2016 request by the SEC (in consultation with the Treasury Department), FINRA recently reviewed the extent to which various FINRA rules apply to U.S. Treasury securities.  Following up on that analysis, on February 6, 2018, FINRA issued Regulatory Notice 18-05, requesting comment on whether it should … Read More

Among the virtual currency transactions that are within the scope of CFTC regulation are leveraged, margined, or financed transactions in virtual currencies offered to retail customers. These retail commodity transactions are illegal unless traded on a regulated futures exchange and cleared through a futures commission merchant. They include any transaction: … Read More

With virtual currency markets booming and bitcoin prices at record highs, U.S. financial regulators have been—each in its own manner—considering whether and how to regulate virtual currencies and related products.  Last week, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced that three futures exchanges—CME, Cboe Futures Exchange, and Cantor Exchange—self-certified … Read More