The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) protects investors and maintains a fair, orderly, and efficient marketplace. While the SEC has historically focused its enforcement efforts on public companies, recent announcements from Acting Chief Accountant Paul Munter suggest the SEC is taking a closer look at other actors who play a role in fair and efficient
On June 22, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) released the Spring 2022 Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions. OIRA is the government’s central authority to review executive branch regulations. The report, which includes both short- and long-term regulatory actions that administrative agencies plan to take, notably included several contributions from the
On April 28, bipartisan lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives introduced legislation, allowing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to oversee cryptocurrency spot markets. The legislation intends to create a framework to fill the regulatory gaps between the CFTC and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) digital asset marketplace and related regimes.
On April 6, Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) released a draft of his proposed stablecoin legislation titled, Stablecoin Transparency of Reserves and Uniform Safe Transactions Act, or the Stablecoin TRUST Act. Toomey, the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, has been a vocal proponent of blockchain innovation, and his recent bill calls for a deft
On March 31, a New York federal court dismissed a proposed securities class-action lawsuit filed against Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. The lawsuit, one of a host of similar actions brought against cryptocurrency exchanges in 2020, was filed by token buyers who purchased cryptocurrency on Binance’s platform.
The plaintiffs asserted that Binance had violated
On January 28, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC or Commission) issued a press release, announcing the settlement of various fraud charges against a private technology company in light of their “significant remedial efforts” made during the course of an internal investigation into alleged misconduct by the firm’s former CEO. A demonstration of regulatory pragmatism
On October 6, Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco announced the creation of a National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET) to handle criminal misuses of cryptocurrency. According to the press release, NCET will focus specifically on crimes committed in virtual currency exchanges, mixing and tumbling services, and money launderers. The team’s additional duties will include
In early September, a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) advisory committee endorsed rule changes to increase disclosure regulations for special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). For almost a year now, the SEC has signaled that there may be a need to beef up rules around SPAC mergers, and this recent move all but confirms its
State regulatory agencies in Alabama, Kentucky, New Jersey, and Texas have increased their efforts to challenge digital asset-related products by issuing cease-and-desist or “show cause” orders against New Jersey-based cryptocurrency company, Celsius Network LLC (Celsius). In September, Celsius — which provides a blockchain-based cryptocurrency lending and trading platform — became the most recent target of
Data brokers beware, the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) has signaled increased scrutiny into the data and privacy practices of technology-enabled companies in the financial services industry. On September 14, the SEC announced that it settled a securities fraud investigation into private technology company App Annie, Inc. and its former CEO and Chairman Bertrand Schmidt, in