The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) voted to adopt new rules on position limits (Final Rules) in an open meeting on October 15. Once effective, the Final Rules will implement one of the remaining key provisions of...more
On October 15, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission adopted new rules on position limits. The new rules mark an important step forward in a decade-long journey to enact one of the remaining key provisions of Title VII of...more
Eight years after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC or Commission) established a comprehensive swap data reporting and public dissemination regulatory regime, on September 17, the Commission adopted extensive...more
Amid the recent, almost daily news of raging wildfires in the western United States and elsewhere, increasingly destructive and deadly hurricanes in the southeast, and record high temperatures in many locations around the...more
On June 13, Louisiana passed the Virtual Currency Businesses Act (VCBA), becoming the second state to enact a stand-alone virtual currency law and the first state to base virtual currency licensing requirements on the Uniform...more
On the fifth anniversary of the introduction of New York’s virtual currency regulation, the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) announced a number of initiatives presumably to make it easier for virtual...more
Key Points -
- The Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE) recently released a Risk Alert warning investment advisers, broker-dealers, investment companies,...more
Key Points -
- Recent Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) enforcement actions against investment advisers and fund managers point to continued pressure points in the areas of conflicts of interest and disclosures to...more
Responding to recent COVID-19-related volatility in futures and options markets and their related agricultural, energy and financial cash markets, and the expectation that such volatility will continue, staff from the three...more
Key Points -
- New York’s Investor Protection Bureau of the Department of Law (the “Department”) proposed changes to notice filing requirements for private funds offered under Regulation D.
- The proposal also would...more
COVID-19 fallout continued to dominate the financial services industry during the past few weeks, prompting ongoing adherence to business continuity and other contingency plans by market participants and new relief by...more
Key Points -
- On April 14, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) proposed an extensive set of amendments to its bankruptcy rules (Proposal), which have not been materially amended since the regulations were...more
Attached please find the updated Foreign Listed Stock Index Futures and Options Approvals Chart, current as of April 15, 2020. All prior versions are superseded and should be discarded. Please note the following developments...more
Key Points -
- The CFTC is proposing to eliminate large sections of current Form CPO-PQR.
- Revised Form CPO-PQR would have a quarterly filing requirement for all CPOs (regardless of size) and would ask them to provide...more
Morphing financial products that potentially caused or arguably should have caused the instruments to move from the oversight of one financial regulator to another highlighted non-COVID-19 developments in financial services...more
At least some financial markets and funds businesses are likely precluded from applying for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) as a result of an...more
Last week a federal district court ruled that a social media company’s initial fundraising to build a blockchain application as well as its later, proposed distribution of digital tokens to serve as virtual currency and for...more
Key Points -
The widely publicized Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (the CARES Act), providing an estimated $2 trillion dollars of COVID-19 relief to Americans, has passed both chambers of Congress and...more
My View: Since the first edition of what has become Bridging the Week on February 23, 2013, I have tried on an almost weekly basis to summarize legal and regulatory developments that I thought might be of interest to persons...more
Key Points -
- This Katten Advisory focuses on the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on regulatory compliance obligations of financial firms operating in the United States, with a focus on securities and derivatives industry...more
3/21/2020
/ Business Continuity Plans ,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ,
CFTC ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Enforcement ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) ,
Financial Services Industry ,
National Futures Association ,
Relief Measures ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
World Health Organization
This Katten Advisory highlights considerations around COVID-19 that may be relevant for private investment funds and their managers. Notwithstanding the current pandemic, fund managers owe fiduciary duties to their clients,...more
Last week, financial services firms and regulators worldwide continued to anticipate and try to mitigate potential issues related to the expected increase in remote working in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Unrelatedly, the...more
Last week, international regulators began issuing guidance and/or relief to impacted firms in response to the spread of COVID-19. The impact of this novel coronavirus has already begun materially to affect operations and...more
3/10/2020
/ Anti-Money Laundering ,
Business Continuity Plans ,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ,
CFTC ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Emergency Response ,
European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) ,
Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) ,
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) ,
Financial Markets ,
Financial Services Industry ,
FinCEN ,
Infectious Diseases ,
National Futures Association ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Supreme Court of India ,
Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs)
A proprietary trading firm was sanctioned by a sixth futures-industry regulator for purported spoofing trades by one of three employees many years ago. For the employees’ aggregate alleged misconduct, the firm was first...more
3/3/2020
/ Bitcoin ,
Broker-Dealer ,
CFTC ,
Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Enforcement Actions ,
ETFs ,
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) ,
Proposed Rules ,
Sanctions ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Spoofing
The International Organization of Securities Commissions articulated considerations for worldwide regulators evaluating cryptoasset trading platforms within their regulatory perimeter. However, IOSCO noted this assessment...more