Strategically Staying Small: Regulatory Avoidance and the Community Reinvestment Act

By Jacelly Cespedes, Jordan Nickerson and Carlos Parra February 18, 2022 by renholding

Banks operate in one of the nation’s most heavily regulated industries, where policy intervention aims for wide-ranging goals that include limiting risk, protecting consumers, and ensuring fair treatment of individuals through equal access to credit. The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), …

The Breakdown of the Public–Private Divide in Securities Law

By George S. Georgiev February 14, 2022 by renholding

Securities law in the United States has traditionally been designed around a set of lines – the “public–private divide” – which separate public companies, public capital, and public markets from private companies, private capital, and private markets. Until the early …

ISS Reviews ESG Equity Indices in 2021

By Hernando Cortina January 28, 2022 by renholding

With some exceptions, 2021 was a generally strong year for equity markets around the world. Impressively, passive ESG products such as ETFs garnered significant inflows of over $150 billion dollars and saw asset under management growth of over 80% globally.

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Fintech SPACs Have Been Swimming Naked – and the Tide Is Going Out

By Todd H. Baker January 27, 2022 by renholding

Acorns Grow Inc., the financial technology and investing startup, said last week that it was abandoning its $2.2 billion merger with SPAC Pioneer Merger Corp., putting itself on the hook for a $17.5 million termination fee. Coming almost eight months …

It’s Time to Regulate Stablecoins as Deposits and Require Their Issuers to Be FDIC-Insured Banks

By Arthur E. Wilmarth, Jr. January 17, 2022 by renholding

In November 2021, the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets (PWG) issued a report analyzing the rapid expansion and growing risks of the stablecoin market.[1] Stablecoins are digital assets that claim to maintain a “stable” value with reference to …

Financing Sustainable Entrepreneurship

By Paul P. Momtaz and Sasan Mansouri January 13, 2022 by renholding

At least since BlackRock boss Larry Fink’s annual letter to CEOs in 2019, investing in ESG assets has become a major topic among both retail and institutional investors. In a new article, we address the question of how economically attractive …

How Rating Agencies’ Market Power Affects Credit Rating Standards

By Mingyi Hung, Pepa Kraft, Shiheng Wang and Gwen Yu January 6, 2022 by renholding

Global credit rating agencies (CRAs) like S&P and Moody’s are important gatekeepers for the debt market. The demand for their ratings has increased at an unprecedented rate in the past two decades due to an extraordinary growth in cross-border debt …

ISS Discusses Increase in Fund Flows for 2021

By Christopher Davis January 4, 2022 by renholding

Back to normal doesn’t mean what it used to. Following a year like no other, demand came roaring out the gate in 2021. While the pace of new demand has slowed somewhat in recent months amidst concern of new COVID

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Paul Weiss Discusses LIBOR Transition and SOFR Alternative

By Jane O’Brien, Manuel Frey, Jessica Carey, Amy Barton and Hilary Christian December 24, 2021 by renholding

As previously reported, the LIBOR settings for one-week and two-month USD LIBOR tenors will cease being representative after December 31, 2021.^[1] This cessation is expect to have less of an impact because these tenors are not as widely used

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How Optimistic Earnings Forecasts Are Kept in Check

By Zachary Kaplan, Xiumin Martin and Yifang Xie December 21, 2021 by renholding

Consensus earnings estimates, prominently quoted at major media outlets such as CNBC, Bloomberg, and the Wall Street Journal, play an important role in capital markets by providing investors with a proxy for earnings expectations. The common belief is that they …

China Experiments with Cross-Border Payments of Central Bank Digital Currencies

By Lerong Lu and Alice Lingsheng Zhang December 17, 2021 by renholding

According to the Financial Stability Board (FSB), there is a consensus among major economies, such as the G20, to enhance cross-border payments.[1] Providing faster, cheaper, and more transparent and inclusive cross-border payment services would be beneficial for citizens, businesses, …

Skadden Discusses SEC’s Final Amendments Under Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act

By Brian V. Breheny, Raquel Fox, Julie Gao, Kenneth W. Chase and Leo W. Chomiak December 15, 2021 by benzonenshayn

On December 2, 2021, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adopted final amendments implementing the disclosure and submission requirements of the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act (HFCA Act). In addition, the adopting release establishes the SEC’s procedures for (i) …

Offshore Activities and Corporate Tax Avoidance

By Zhihong Chen, Ole-Kristian Hope, Qingyuan Li and Yongbo Li December 9, 2021 by renholding

Taxation of multinational companies (MNCs) has received increasing attention from politicians, the media, regulators, and academics. While the popular press provides considerable anecdotal evidence that large MNCs pay lower taxes than their domestic counterparts, academic research provides mixed evidence on …

A Ranking Season Would Help Combat Discrimination by Commercial Banks

By Nizan Geslevich Packin and Srinivas Nippani December 3, 2021 by renholding

Last October, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) launched what they are referring to as an aggressive effort to combat deliberate financial discrimination against …

Cleary Gottlieb Discusses Federal Banking Agencies’ Crypto Initiative

By Derek Bush, Lauren E. Semrad, Colin D. Lloyd, Hugh C. Conroy, Jr. and Julia Knight December 1, 2021 by renholding

On November 23, 2021, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued a joint statement on an inter-agency initiative to address bank and bank …

Debt and Taxes: Why Loans Are Really Leases

By David Hasen November 22, 2021 by renholding

Debt has been a ubiquitous form of finance for millennia, and one might reasonably assume that we have a good handle on exactly what it is by now. It turns out that may not be the case.

A loan is …

ISS Discusses Intangible Assets and Company Valuation

By Anthony Campagna and Kevin Spellman November 18, 2021 by renholding

Intangible assets continue to represent a significant portion of the overall Balance Sheet globally. Over 40% of capital in the US today is in the form of intangible assets, as assessed by our ISS EVA (Economic Value Added) methodology. The

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Debevoise & Plimpton Discusses Federal Regulators’ Focus on AI and Consumer Protection in Finance

By Courtney M. Dankworth, Avi Gesser, Gregory J. Lyons, James B. Amler and Anna R. Gressel November 15, 2021 by renholding

As financial institutions increasingly deploy artificial intelligence (“AI”), including machine learning and automated decision-making technologies, across their business lines, U.S. federal regulators have started to scrutinize the consumer protection implications of these technologies. Most recently, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”), …

Sullivan & Cromwell Discusses Stablecoins Report of President’s Working Group on Financial Markets

By Sullivan & Cromwell November 11, 2021 by renholding

The President’s Working Group on Financial Markets (the “PWG”),[1] the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (“FDIC”) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (the “OCC”) published the Report on Stablecoins on November 1, 2021.^[2] The Report (1) …

The Dark Side of Information Dissemination

By Charles G. McClure, Shawn X. Shi and Edward M. Watts November 8, 2021 by renholding

For decades, there has been an important debate over how much securities regulators should focus on protecting small investors. The regulators themselves have generally aimed to create a level playing field among investors, and historically, new technology has been an …

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