Sky Blog
The Commission has denied the Petition for Rulemaking filed on behalf of Coinbase Global, Inc. (“Petitioner”) on July 21, 2022.[1] We disagree with the Commission’s decision.
We acknowledge that the Commission has broad discretion to set the timing and
In the global effort to protect the earth’s climate, the pace of regulation is rivaled only by the speed of technological innovation.
What seemed improbable just a few years ago – requiring large companies to measure and report annual greenhouse …
The legal world witnessed a riveting face-off last week as the Supreme Court delved into the intricacies of SEC v. Jarkesy. The case, stemming from a divided opinion by the Fifth Circuit in May 2022, challenges the constitutionality of …
In August, the SEC proposed rules requiring broker-dealers (BDs) and investment advisers (IAs) to identify and eliminate or neutralize the effect of conflicts of interest associated with their use of technologies, widely defined (Proposal). My primary concern about the Proposal …
In the wake of Slack Techs., LLC v. Pirani,[1] many have predicted that Section 11 of the Securities Act of 1933 will decline into a state of near irrelevance. Some have mourned this prospect in the belief that …
The value of assets on the blockchain has soared to billions of dollars, stored everywhere from Bitcoin to Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs to play-to-earn gaming. Some of those assets, though, have crashed and burned in the wake of market …
On November 21, 2023, the staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) Division of Corporation Finance issued eight new Compliance & Disclosure Interpretations (C&DIs), and revised two previously issued C&DIs, relating to the final pay-versus-performance (PVP) disclosure rules adopted …
On November 14, 2023, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (“SEC” or “Commission”) Division of Enforcement (“Division”) announced its enforcement results for fiscal year (“FY”) 2023.[1] Disgorgement and penalties were the second highest in the SEC’s history at just …
On November 21, 2023, a coalition of labor unions led by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), announced that it has nominated three director candidates for election to the Board of Directors of Starbucks at the 2024 annual meeting of …
After receiving board approval to buy back stock under a 10b5-1 plan, a company interpreted Rule 10b5-1 in a manner with which the SEC disagreed. The SEC did not allege that the company traded on the basis of material nonpublic …
Digital assets and blockchains can lead to financial innovations with a range of applications across countries, markets, and industries. Yet they also require comprehensive regulation, which is especially difficult within the fragmented financial-regulation framework of the United States. In a …
The growth of the private equity industry over the past two decades has been nothing short of extraordinary. Yet research on the formation and governance of these funds – including the rights and obligations of general partners and limited partners …
The Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it filed 784 total enforcement actions in fiscal year 2023, a 3 percent increase over fiscal year 2022, including 501 original, or “stand-alone,” enforcement actions, an 8 percent increase over the prior fiscal …
On October 30, 2023, the SEC filed a litigated complaint against SolarWinds, a software development company, and Timothy Brown, its chief information security officer (CISO). The SEC alleges that from October 2018, when SolarWinds went public, to January 2021, SolarWinds …
Good morning and thank you, Jim [Burns], for that introduction. I am pleased to be part of the 2023 conference on SEC Regulation Outside the United States to deliver the Fifth Annual Scott Friestad Memorial Lecture.
I had the privilege
To regulate artificial intelligence, or AI, it is important to look at the various, and often contradictory, settings where AI operates – and how it is treated there. For example, data privacy generally and in particular open banking, in which …
A number of regulations encourage whistleblowers to provide tips on corporate financial misconduct. For example, as a part of the 2011 Dodd-Frank Act, Congress enacted a whistleblower program to reward eligible individuals with up to 30 percent of the monetary …
On October 31, 2023, the Fifth Circuit, in Chamber of Commerce of the USA vs. SEC,[1] found that the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) violated the Administrative Procedure Act and directed the SEC to “correct the defects” …
In response to extreme weather events, regulators and standard setters are developing climate-related reporting requirements and standards. The thinking behind making disclosure of firms’ climate-related risks mandatory is that it will allow the market to price these risks, thereby using …