Sky Blog
With over $186 billion in average daily trading volume, the To-Be-Announced (“TBA”) market serves as a significant funding and hedging vehicle for consumer mortgage origination. Although a large portion of the TBA market is comprised of highly liquid agency MBS, …
The following remarks were delivered by SEC Chair Mary Jo White before the Economic Club of New York. A copy of the speech is also available here.
Today, I want to speak to you about the current state of …
INTRODUCTION
On June 24, 2014, the House of Representatives voted 265 to 144 to pass H.R. 4413, entitled the “Customer Protection and End-User Relief Act” (the “Reauthorization Act”). The Reauthorization Act reauthorizes the operations of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission …
Nearly four years after the enactment of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (“Dodd-Frank Act”), on June 25, 2014, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) adopted its first in a series of final rules aimed at cross-border …
High frequency trading has more enemies than friends, but the key question is what are the costs of reform. Attorney General Schneiderman’s pending suit against Barclays PLC for allegedly misrepresenting that its dark pool (known as “LX”) was “safe” from …
The following post comes to us from Brent J. Horton, Associate Professor at Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business. It is based on his recent paper entitled “For the Protection of Investors and the Public: Why Fannie Mae’s Mortgage-Backed …
SUMMARY
A recent SEC court filing confirmed the existence of enforcement investigations into a potential violation of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act. In a subpoena enforcement action filed against the House Ways and Means Committee and the …
On June 16, 2014, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued an order against Paradigm Capital Management, Inc. (Paradigm), a registered investment adviser, and its principal for engaging in principal trades without effective client disclosure and consent, and for retaliating …
I agree with much that was said in earlier postings on the implications of Halliburton II going forward. We simply don’t know how lower courts will structure the price distortion inquiry, and if the mess the courts have made of …
Simple. The lawyers. Cases will take longer to settle, litigation will be prolonged, and the outcome will be more legal fees – with no indication that it will actually improve outcomes.
There’s a certain irony in all of this – …
The recent all out, well-orchestrated effort in Halliburton II to reverse the “fraud on the market” presumption of reliance of Basic v. Levinson, 485 US 224 (1988), has clearly failed, but as we shall see, there is more to …
For all the talk about market efficiency, and the dueling economic theories at the heart of the debate over the efficient capital markets hypothesis, Halliburton II ended up being decided on distinctly lawyerly grounds. Chief Justice Roberts’s opinion for the …
Six months after issuing regulations to implement the Volcker Rule[1] (the “Rule”), the Federal Reserve Board, the other federal bank regulators and the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “Agencies”) on June 10 issued guidance on the Rule in the form …
The following post comes to us from Wendy Gerwick Couture, Associate Professor at the University of Idaho College of Law. It is based on her recent paper entitled “The PSLRA Discovery Stay Meets Complex Litigation: Five Questions Answered,” which is …
Yesterday the Staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Divisions of Investment Management and Corporation Finance issued regulatory guidance (in the form of a user-friendly Q&A) concerning the proxy voting responsibilities of investment advisers (such as fund managers), the …
On June 10, 2014, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (“PCAOB”) adopted a new auditing standard, as well as amendments to its existing auditing standards, designed “to strengthen auditor performance requirements in three critical areas that historically have represented increased …
Ask any plaintiff’s lawyer about Halliburton II, and you will hear a predictable response: “Whew! We Dodged the Bullet!” But that is not entirely accurate. The bullet hit, but inflicted a non-fatal wound. Prior to Halliburton II, class …
The one point that is clear in Halliburton II is that fraud on the market is limited to securities traded in an “efficient market.” Unfortunately, it is not clear what significance to give this principle as the opinion sheds no …