Equity Index Futures: A Mature Market with Unresolved Regulatory Challenges

By Lynn Bai October 5, 2020 by renholding

Equity index futures are futures contracts written on equity indices such as the S&P 500 or the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Deriving values from the underlying indices, index futures offer expedience to investors interested in a broad economic sector or …

Latham & Watkins Discusses CFTC No-Action Relief on IBOR Transition

By Yvette D. Valdez, Adam Bruce Fovent and J. Ashley Weeks September 18, 2020 by snehapandya

On August 31, 2020, three divisions of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued revised no-action letters providing additional relief to swap dealers (SDs), end users, and other market participants from registration requirements; business conduct standards; uncleared swap margin …

Skadden Discusses CFTC’s Final Cross-Border Swaps Rule

By Joseph Vebman, Mark D. Young, Jonathan Marcus and Daniel B. O'Connell August 14, 2020 by renholding

On July 23, 2020, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC or Commission) voted 3-2 to approve a final rule (Final Rule) on the cross-border application of certain swap provisions under the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA).1 The Final Rule represents a …

Davis Polk Offers Financial Institutions Enforcement Update

By Greg Andres, Martine Beamon, Robert Cohen, Neil MacBride and Paul Nathanson January 28, 2020 by renholding

To assist legal and compliance officers of financial institutions, this memorandum summarizes key recent developments in criminal prosecutions and regulatory enforcement actions involving financial institutions during November and December 2019.

Among the significant matters and trends:

The last two months

…

SEC, CFTC, and FinCEN Leaders Issue Statement on Digital Asset Activities

By Heath Tarbert, Kenneth A. Blanco and Jay Clayton October 14, 2019 by renholding

The leaders of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “Agencies”) today issued the following joint statement to remind persons engaged in activities involving digital assets of their

…

Sullivan & Cromwell Discusses Amendments to Volcker Rule Regulations

By Sullivan & Cromwell LLP July 15, 2019 by renholding

On July 9, 2019, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (the “Federal Reserve”), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (the “OCC”), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (the “FDIC”), the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) …

Davis Polk Discusses CFTC’s Entry Into Anti-Corruption Enforcement

By Angela T. Burgess, James W. Haldin, Neil H. MacBride, Tatiana R. Martins and Paul J. Nathanson March 22, 2019 by renholding

On March 6, 2019, Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) Director of Enforcement James McDonald announced an initiative to pursue foreign corrupt practices that constitute violations of the Commodities Exchange Act (“CEA”), noting that the Enforcement Division already has open investigations …

When Good Incentives Are Not Enough: The Quest for Financial Data Standardization

By Richard Berner and Kathryn Judge January 29, 2019 by renholding

Data standardization – the process of developing and implementing rules for how data are described and recorded – offers significant benefits for financial firms and regulators. Nonetheless, the topic has received only scant attention from academics, and regulatory efforts to …

Bitcoin Futures: From Self-Certification to Systemic Risk

By Lee Reiners December 18, 2018 by renholding

December 2017 marked a milestone in the short history of virtual currency. On Friday, December 1, 2017, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. (CME) and the CBOE Futures Exchange (CFE) self-certified new contracts for cash-settled bitcoin futures products. The self-certification process …

How the Regulation of Initial Coin Offerings Shifted from Inactivity to Full Enforcement

By Marco Dell’Erba December 5, 2018 by renholding

In recent years, Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) have emerged as a disruptive tool in entrepreneurial finance. ICOs involve the sale of a stake in a project with the aim of raising funds at an early stage of development. Although ICOs …

Skadden Discusses CFTC Division of Enforcement’s First Annual Report

By David Meister, Jonathan Marcus and Daniel B. O'Connell November 27, 2018 by renholding

On November 14, 2018, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Division of Enforcement released an annual report, apparently the first of its kind.¹ In a speech given at New York University School of Law, James M. McDonald, director of …

The Underappreciated Dilemmas of Overlapping Financial Regulations

By Matthew C. Turk October 25, 2018 by renholding

Calls to dismantle the legal framework that was developed in response to the financial crisis have begun to multiply and gain momentum. Pursuant to a Trump Administration executive order, the Treasury Department has released a series of reports that undertakes …

The Real but Exaggerated Threat of Financial Institution Mobility to Financial Regulation

By Ilya Beylin October 11, 2018 by ilyabeylin

Where jurisdictions differ in how they regulate an activity, migration allows private parties to choose between regulatory regimes. In the context of financial regulation, scholars assert that harmonization of regulation across jurisdictions is necessary to prevent institutions from opting into …

Cleary Gottlieb Discusses SEC’s Latest Take on Digital Assets as Securities

By Michael H. Krimminger, Pamela L. Marcogliese, Matthew C. Solomon and Zachary L. Baum June 21, 2018 by renholding

On Thursday, June 14, the SEC Director of Corporation Finance, William Hinman, stated his view that current secondary market trades of Ether are not now securities transactions as part of a speech on the treatment of digital assets under the …

Arnold & Porter Discusses Regulators’ Clamp-Down on ICOs, Virtual Currencies, and Blockchain Firms

By Andrew Joseph Shipe, Lawton M. Camp, Michael D. Trager, Christopher L. Allen and Anthony Raglani April 30, 2018 by renholding

If there was ever a regulatory grace period for virtual currencies and blockchain technology, it is officially over. Five federal regulators—The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the US Treasury Department (FinCEN), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Commodity Futures …

How to Regulate Bitcoin Futures

By Margaret Ryznar April 26, 2018 by renholding

Bitcoin is a currency, technology, and, most recently, futures product. Several clearinghouses have allowed bitcoin futures trading. For example, CBOE launched trading in bitcoin futures on December 10, 2017, while CME Group did so a week later.[1] NASDAQ and …

Clifford Chance Discusses the Role of the CFTC in the Regulation of Bitcoin

By David Felsenthal, Daniel Silver, Jesse Overall and Brian Yin February 16, 2018 by charlesbluesky

The remarkable growth and volatility of Bitcoin and other virtual currencies has raised the question of how these markets are regulated. The CFTC has emerged as “the federal overseer of digital currencies like bitcoin,” according to Bloomberg.[1] Other federal …

SEC Chair Clayton Testifies About Virtual Currencies

By Jay Clayton February 8, 2018 by renholding

Chairman Crapo, Ranking Member Brown and distinguished senators of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today.[1] I am pleased that the Committee is holding this hearing to bring greater focus to the important issues …

Skadden Discusses CFTC Regulatory Issues for Cryptocurrencies

By Jonathan Marcus and Prashina J. Gagoomal December 21, 2017 by charlesbluesky

Digital or virtual currencies based on cryptography (commonly referred to as ‘‘cryptocurrencies’’) have picked up steam, with a surge in trading and dramatic increase in market value over the past year, and have attracted interest from mainstream finance and regulators

…

Gibson Dunn Discusses CFTC and EC Plans to Harmonize Derivatives Regulation

By Michael Bopp, Amy Kennedy, Carl Kennedy, Arthur Long and Jeff Steiner November 29, 2017 by Carly Goeman

This alert discusses the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (“CFTC”) and European Commission’s (“EC”, together with the CFTC, the “Commissions”) announcements on October 13, 2017 regarding the international harmonization on two key derivatives regulatory …

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