MVA White Collar Defense, Investigations, and Regulatory Advice Blog

For followers of developments related to National Bank Act (NBA) preemption and the United States Supreme Court’s related decision in Cantero v. Bank of America, N.A., 602 U.S. 205 (2024), the waning days of 2024 proved noteworthy. On December 20, 2024, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (the “District Court”) applied Cantero’s principles for evaluating claims of NBA preemption of state law and granted a preliminary injunction from enforcement of Illinois’s Interchange Fee Prohibition Act (the “IFPA” or, the “Act”) against national banks and federal savings associations. Illinois Bankers Association et. al. v. Raoul, No. 24 C 7307, 202 WL 5186840 (N.D. Ill., Dec. 20, 2024).  Only a few days later, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (the “Ninth Circuit”) withdrew its August 2024 decision that had affirmed its 2022 decision that the NBA did not preempt California’s interest on escrow (IOE) law, indicating it would schedule oral arguments and requesting supplemental briefing by the parties to address whether the IOE law was preempted “under the standard and methodology” announced in Cantero.  Kivett v. Flagstar Bank, FSB, No. 21-15667, 2024 WL 5206133 (9^th Cir. Dec. 24, 2024). These developments gave us the first reasoned lower court opinion applying Cantero and set the stage for potentially three circuit courts (the First, Second and Ninth) to explicitly address and apply Cantero in 2025.   

Following up on our most recent blog post on developments regarding the enforcement date for the Corporate transparency Act (“CTA”), on December 26, 2024, the Fifth Circuit Panel that will ultimately be handling the merits of the appeal from the District Court issued an order vacating another order by a different Fifth Circuit panel on December 23, 2024 that had stayed the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas’ nationwide injunction on the beneficial ownership reporting obligations under the CTA. The aim of the rapid reversal is to preserve the constitutional status quo while the merits panel considers the parties’ weighty substantive arguments.

Following up on our most recent blog post on developments regarding the enforcement date for the CTA, on the afternoon of December 23, 2024, the Fifth Circuit issued its order staying the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas' nationwide injunction on the beneficial ownership reporting obligations under the CTA.

As a result, the reporting obligations under the CTA are now back in effect except to the extent enjoined for plaintiffs in National Small Business United v. Yellen, No. 5:22-cv-01448 (N.D. Ala.), with all entities existing prior to 2024 and all entities formed in 2024 being required to file. Recognizing that reporting companies may need additional time in light of the injunction previously in effect, FinCEN will require entities existing prior to 2024 and entities formed in September, 2024 who would have had to file during the period when the injunction was in effect to file their initial BOIR before January 13, 2025 (instead of before January 1, 2025 as originally required). Entities formed on or after December 3, 2024, which would have had to file within 90 days of formation have an additional 21 days to file (111 days in total in which to file).  See https://www.fincen.gov/boi for the full update.

We are continuing to monitor the situation, and will provide further updates when they become available.

As discussed in our prior blog post, on December 3, 2024, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (“District Court”) issued an order preliminarily enjoining enforcement of the Corporate Transparency Act and the associated beneficial ownership information reporting rules (the “CTA”) nationwide (the “preliminary injunction”).

On December 3, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (“Court”) entered a sweeping order enjoining enforcement of the Corporate Transparency Act and the associated beneficial ownership information reporting rules (the “CTA”) nationwide. The immediate effect: notwithstanding the CTA’s stated reporting deadline of December 31, 2024, no entity is currently required to file with the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) information about itself, its owners or the persons otherwise controlling the entity.

On October 2, 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) announced it had settled enforcement proceedings against Thrivent Investment Management, Inc. (“Thrivent”), a SEC dually-registered broker-dealer and investment adviser, stemming from Thrivent’s alleged failure to update a calculator tool utilized by its representatives to determine which shares in certain 529 College Savings Plans are recommended to its retail customers.

On Sunday, September 29, California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed California Senate Bill 1047, which would have established novel safety regulations on large artificial intelligence (AI) models.  Known as the Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models Act, SB 1047 would have required developers of covered models, which are defined to include only large, high-cost and power-intensive AI models, to, among other things.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) (collectively, the “Agencies”) jointly proposed a rule (the “Proposed Rule”) that would impact existing confidential reporting obligations of private equity funds and other collective investment vehicles not registered as an “investment company” (referred to as, “Private Funds”). The rule proposes changes to the Form PF, a non-public report for certain SEC-registered investment advisers to Private Funds, which get submitted to the SEC (and CFTC ...

A Bloomberg article last week suggests potentially more bad news is on the way for Coinbase Global Inc. (“Coinbase”). Coinbase is reportedly facing an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) into whether it let customers trade digital assets that the SEC believes should have been registered as securities. Rumors of investigations by the SEC do not necessarily suggest problems for the company at the center of those rumors, but the timing of a recent SEC complaint (SEC v. Wahi) may explain why this report had such a negative effect on Coinbase’s ...

On June 8, 2022, the New York State Department of Financial Services (“NYDFS”) released industry guidance applicable to U.S. dollar-backed stablecoins issued by NYDFS-regulated entities (the “Guidance”). The Guidance focuses on NYDFS requirements relating to the redeemability of these stablecoins, the asset reserves that back them (the “Reserves”), and auditor examination and attestations regarding management’s assertions concerning the sufficiency of the Reserves.  

By way of background, a stablecoin is a type of digital asset that is intended to ...

On March 30, 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (“SEC”) Division of Examinations released its exam priorities for fiscal year 2022 (the “2022 Priorities”). As in years past, these exam priorities naturally follow from SEC rulemakings, statements, risk alerts and other guidance issued in the past year, and reflect practices or topics that may pose higher risk for referral to the SEC’s Division of Enforcement.

The 2022 Priorities include broader thematic “Significant Focus Areas,” which may be applicable to both broker-dealers and registered ...