MVA White Collar Defense, Investigations, and Regulatory Advice Blog

Welcome to “The Desk”, Moore & Van Allen's (MVA) updated Swaps and Derivatives newsletter. Our goal is simple, to provide you key updates and insights that you can quickly digest and easily share with your peers, boss, or anyone else that shares a passion for swaps and derivatives news. 

In a prior post, we discussed the recent proposed rules from the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) regarding certain non-public information reported to the SEC and the CFTC in the Form PF. Most of the rule is discussing information and requirements that are not related to or focused on digital assets. However, in one part, there is a proposal to request information from private funds about their “digital assets”.

The definition from the SEC and CFTC for “digital assets” is broad and all encompassing. As a ...

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 ...

In a press release (HERE) on June 8th, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (the “CFTC”) published its first release in a series called the “SOFR First Transition Initiative” as a best practice. One goal for this sort of “best practice” is to impact the liquidity in LIBOR and SOFR swaps, thereby slowly (a) increasing the spread on LIBOR swaps and (b) tightening the spread on SOFR swaps. In other words, make LIBOR swaps more expensive and SOFR swaps less expensive. Even for non-dealers, this announcement is important as it is not only a major step in such non-dealers’ ...

On November 6, 2019, the Fraud Section of the Department of Justice with the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas, and the CFTC, announced settlements of their spoofing and market manipulation investigations of Tower Research Capital LLC (Tower Research).  The penalties are the highest in a spoofing case to date. The Department’s settlement again indicates that the Fraud Section has concluded spoofing and market manipulation are widespread, so general deterrence requires harsher sanction. However, there is also important history.  The predicted ...

On September 16, 2019, the Department of Justice and the CFTC jointly announced the indictment of three precious metal traders for an alleged eight year conspiracy to manipulate gold, silver, platinum, and palladium futures prices and civil charges based upon the same conduct. (One former trader from the institution had already pleaded guilty to one count of commodities fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, commodities fraud, price manipulation, and spoofing; a second former trader had pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to engage in spoofing and one count of ...

As government authorities around the world create a constantly evolving regulatory environment, conduct overlapping investigations, and bring parallel proceedings, companies are facing perhaps the most challenging regulatory and criminal enforcement environment. Our goal is to serve as a leading-edge resource for companies navigating these waters. Moore & Van Allen’s WCIRA News Clips is a complement to our White Collar Defense, Investigations, and Regulatory Advice Blog’s in-depth individual treatment of critical emerging issues. WCIRA News Clips hits the ...

By Neil Bloomfield and Kristen Kenley  Double jeopardy prevents criminal defendants from being convicted of the same crime twice.  Res judicata prevents civil litigants from facing repeated claims by an overly aggressive plaintiff. Unfortunately, in the years after the financial crisis financial institutions were essentially unprotected from receiving multi-million dollar demands by multiple regulators for the same conduct.  The financial industry may soon experience a welcome shift from the Government’s burdensome and duplicative practice as policy changes at the ...

Charlotte Litigation Member Ed O’Keefe will be presenting at the 2018 Financial Markets Association Conference on April 18, 2018. His presentation will discuss key legislative and regulatory initiatives affecting financial services companies, the rulemaking agenda for the SEC and the CFTC, and regulatory burden relief initiatives undertaken by the banking agencies to date.

For additional information on this event, click here.