On April 16, 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) adopted three new proposals for standards that would apply to broker-dealers and investment advisers in dealing with retail customers. Regulation “Best Interest” would apply to broker dealers. Another release would interpret and enhance the “fiduciary” standard applicable to investment advisors. Finally, the third release… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Securities
Supreme Court: Dodd-Frank Whistleblower Protections Apply Only to SEC Complaints
In Digital Realty Trust, Inc. v. Summers, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the anti-retaliation provisions in Section 922 of the Dodd-Frank Act apply only to whistleblowing of violations of the securities laws to the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) and not to internal whistleblowing to company personnel. The SEC thus chose the narrower… Read more »
CFTC Issues Report on Virtual Currencies
On October 17, 2017, the Commodity Futures Trading Commision’s (the “CFTC”) LabCFTC, the CFTC’s division launched this year to look at financial technology (“FinTech”), issued a press release and its first primer (in the form of an outline on slides) called “A CFTC Primer on Virtual Currencies” (the “Primer”). Perhaps the most important statement in the… Read more »
Second Treasury Report on Changes to Dodd-Frank
In response to Executive Order 13772 on Core Principles for Regulating the U.S. Financial System, February 3, 2017, the U.S. Treasury (the “Treasury”) issued its second report on October 6, 2017, entitled “A Financial System that Creates Economic Opportunities: Capital Markets” (the “Report”). after the first report on banks and credit unions was released in… Read more »
SEC Report on Virtual Token Offerings and ICOs
On July 25, 2017, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) Division of Enforcement released a Report of Investigation (the “Report”) and a press release on the securities law analysis of an offer of DAO virtual tokens (“DAO Tokens”). (Such an offer is sometimes called an Initial Coin Offering, or “ICO”.) The Report may be the first of this type of report… Read more »