On April 25, 2022, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced that it will begin relying upon a “largely unused legal provision” of the Dodd-Frank Act to supervise nonbank financial companies that purportedly pose risks to consumers.
Client Alert | May 5, 2022
Washington, D.C. counsel Lauren Cook Jackson was named to DCA Live’s Emerging Women Leaders in Law list, which honors “great women attorneys in the Washington region who are emerging as leaders within their firms and the broader DC legal community.”
Firm News | April 11, 2022
Please join our distinguished panelists for a recorded discussion about the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and how they apply in corporate enforcement actions. They discuss issues arising in white collar matters and strategies that can impact the calculation of the Sentencing Guidelines fine range, including gain from the offense, corporate recidivism, and cooperation, among other issues.
Webcasts | March 30, 2022
On March 9, 2022, President Biden signed a long-awaited Executive Order regarding the U.S. government’s strategy for digital assets. Our lawyers review the three principal takeaways from the Executive Order.
Client Alert | March 10, 2022
New York partner Arthur Long is the author of "Virtual Currencies and Innovation in the Dual Banking System," published by The Review of Banking & Financial Services, Vol. 38, No. 1, in January 2022.
Article | January 27, 2022
New York partners Matthew Biben and Mylan Denerstein are the authors of "USA," Chapter 22 of Corporate Investigations 2022 published by International Comparative Legal Guides in January 2022.
Article | January 4, 2022
In this webcast, a panel of Gibson Dunn lawyers provide a comprehensive overview of spoofing and manipulation in the commodities and derivatives markets under the Commodity Exchange Act and other authorities.
Webcasts | December 9, 2021
On November 15, 2021, President Biden signed into law the “Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act,” which adds new reporting requirements for certain cryptocurrency transactions that have little to do with infrastructure, but could have potentially dramatic implications for millions of United States businesses and consumers who have embraced cryptocurrency for its efficiency, transparency, and accessibility.
Client Alert | November 18, 2021
Gibson Dunn's lawyers summarize and analyze the recent report on stablecoins, a type of digital asset that has recently grown significantly in market capitalization and importance to the broader digital asset markets.
Client Alert | November 4, 2021
The New York State Department of Financial Services is the state’s primary regulator of financial institutions and activity, with jurisdiction over approximately 1,400 financial institutions and 1,800 insurance companies. In this webcast, a panel of Gibson Dunn lawyers discusses not only changes to the agency’s leadership and organizational structure, but also recent developments with respect to the agency’s guidance, regulations, and enforcement matters.
Webcasts | October 25, 2021
On Friday October 15, 2021, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued an enforcement order against the issuers of the U.S. dollar Tether token (USDT), a leading stablecoin, and fined those issuers $41 million for making untrue or misleading statements about maintaining sufficient fiat currency reserves to back each USDT “one-to-one.”
Client Alert | October 20, 2021
On September 23, 2021, President Joseph Biden announced his intention to nominate Professor Saule Omarova of Cornell Law School to be the next Comptroller of the Currency. This alert touches on the key themes of her academic writings and addresses how these themes could translate into regulatory priorities at the OCC and FDIC.
Client Alert | September 27, 2021
Gibson Dunn lawyers discuss the loan market's transition away from inter-bank offered rates (IBORs) to risk free rates (RFRs) and how market participants, particularly in Islamic transactions, can prepare for forthcoming changes to avoid uncertainty in their financing agreements or other contracts.
Client Alert | June 14, 2021
On 21 May 2021, the Hong Kong government published the Consultation Conclusions on legislative proposals to enhance anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (“AML/CTF”) regulations in Hong Kong, including a proposal to introduce a licensing regime for virtual asset services providers (“VASPs”).
Client Alert | June 7, 2021
On June 3, 2021, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued an important decision dismissing a lawsuit by the New York State Department of Financial Services, which was challenging the authority of the federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to grant special purpose national bank charters.
Client Alert | June 7, 2021
During the week of May 17, 2021, there were important virtual currency developments at two of the principal federal banking agencies, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
Client Alert | May 21, 2021
Join Gibson Dunn panelists for a discussion of recent FCA criminal prosecutions, lessons for board governance from the Aviva plc Final Notice and an update on the Investment Firms Prudential Regime and remuneration.
Webcasts | April 27, 2021
On April 7, 2021, the new regulation of the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) governing confidential supervisory information (CSI) became effective in final form. NYDFS has thus joined the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Federal Reserve) in making recent amendments to its approach to CSI.
Client Alert | April 21, 2021
New York partner Matthew Biben is the author of "The New Anti-Money Laundering Act: Issues for Financial Institutions," [PDF] published by the New York Law Journal on April 16, 2021.
Publications | April 16, 2021
On April 6, 2021, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law Senate Bill 297B/Assembly Bill 164B, the long anticipated New York State legislation addressing the cessation of U.S. Dollar LIBOR.
Client Alert | April 8, 2021
On March 5, 2021, regulators and industry groups provided market participants with much anticipated clarity by announcing the dates for the cessation of publication of, and non-representativeness of, various settings of the London Interbank Offered Rate which will allow market participants to identify the date that their financial instruments and commercial agreements that reference LIBOR will transition to an alternative reference rate (e.g., a risk free rate).
Client Alert | March 9, 2021
On February 26, 2021, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System issued a Supervision and Regulation letter containing its final supervisory guidance on the effectiveness of a banking institution’s board of directors. The Guidance applies to bank holding companies and savings-and-loan holding companies with total consolidated assets of $100 billion or more, with the exception of intermediate holding companies of foreign banking organizations. A separate Supervision and Regulation letter issued the same day revised twelve prior Supervision and Regulation letters touching on the subject and made nine additional prior Supervision and Regulation letters inactive.
Client Alert | March 3, 2021
On February 18, 2021, the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control, an agency of the Treasury Department that administers and enforces U.S. economic and trade sanctions, issued an enforcement release of a settlement agreement with BitPay, Inc. for apparent violations relating to Bitpay’s payment processing solution that allows merchants to accept digital currency as payment for goods and services. OFAC found that BitPay allowed users apparently located in sanctioned countries and areas to transact with merchants in the United States and elsewhere using the BitPay platform, even though BitPay had Internet Protocol address data for those users. The users in sanctioned countries were not BitPay’s direct customers, but rather its customer’s customers (in this case the merchants’ customers).
Client Alert | February 24, 2021
London partners Michelle Kirschner and Matthew Nunan are the authors of "Reverse solicitation: a shot across the bow," first published by Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence on February 10, 2021.
Article | February 17, 2021
Now that the first 100 days of the Biden Administration are in full swing, its financial regulatory priorities are becoming clearer. In this Client Alert, we discuss where we expect the Administration to focus, with respect to the banking, fintech, and derivatives sectors.
Client Alert | February 16, 2021
The New York State Department of Financial Services (“DFS”) is the state’s primary regulator of financial institutions and activity, with jurisdiction over approximately 1,500 financial institutions and 1,800 insurance companies. Gibson Dunn lawyers summarize recent key developments regarding the agency.
Client Alert | February 2, 2021
In this webcast, a panel of Gibson Dunn lawyers in London provides a review of UK financial services regulatory developments in 2020, and what these developments indicate about the future regulatory direction of travel.
Webcasts | January 27, 2021
On January 13, 2021, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency conditionally approved the charter conversion application for Anchorage Trust Company, permitting Anchorage to become a national trust bank. This is the first approval by the OCC of a virtual currency firm’s becoming a federally regulated banking institution and demonstrates the ongoing leadership that the OCC has shown with respect to virtual currency issues. Although this development is significant in and of itself, the Anchorage approval relies on a new OCC Chief Counsel’s Interpretation, released as OCC Interpretive Letter 1176, that substantially increases the trust powers of national banks, making them a more attractive business model generally and particularly for fintech firms.
Client Alert | January 25, 2021
On 7 January 2021, the Joint Committee of the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) wrote to the European Commission, requesting “urgent” clarification on several important areas of uncertainty in the application of Regulation (EU) 2019/2088 on sustainability-related disclosures in the financial services sector prior to the application of the majority of its requirements on 10 March 2021.
Client Alert | January 21, 2021
In their 2020 year-end review, Gibson Dunn lawyers assess the UK financial regulatory landscape through the prism of three areas of increasing regulatory focus: governance, culture and individual accountability; conduct and enforcement; and operational and financial resilience.
Client Alert | January 14, 2021
Washington, D.C. counsel Roscoe Jones Jr., New York partner Joel Cohen, Washington, D.C. partner Michael Bopp, New York partner Arthur Long, Washington, D.C. partner Jeffrey Steiner, Washington, D.C. associate Samantha Ostrom, Orange County associate Maggie Zhang and San Francisco associate Alexandra Farmer are the authors of "Financial Policy in the Incoming Biden Administration: What Can We Expect?" published by Wall Street Lawyer in its December 2020 issue.
Article | January 8, 2021
After a complicated path to passage, on January 1, 2021 the Senate completed the override of President Trump’s veto of the National Defense Authorization Act and, as part of that legislation, passed the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020. The AMLA is the most comprehensive set of reforms to the anti-money laundering laws in the United States since the USA PATRIOT Act was passed in 2001. The Act’s provisions range from requiring many smaller companies to disclose beneficial ownership information to FinCEN to mandating awards to whistleblowers that report actionable information about Bank Secrecy Act/AML violations.
Client Alert | January 1, 2021
In this webcast, Gibson Dunn provides a discussion regarding the latest developments and trends in anti-money laundering and sanctions laws, regulations, and enforcement.
Webcasts | December 10, 2020
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) continues to show a desire to take action in sectors of the financial services industry where there has been traditionally less supervisory oversight and to push the importance of firm’s internal governance and oversight structures.
Client Alert | December 2, 2020
On November 30, 2020, ICE Benchmark Administration, the administrator of LIBOR, with the support of the Federal Reserve Board and the UK Financial Conduct Authority, announced plans to consult on specific timing for the path forward to cease the publication of USD LIBOR. In particular, IBA plans to consult on ceasing the publication of USD LIBOR on December 31, 2021 for only the one week and two month USD LIBOR tenors, and on June 30, 2023 for all other USD LIBOR tenors (i.e., overnight, one month, three month, six month and 12 month tenors).
Client Alert | December 1, 2020
On November 20, 2020, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) proposed a rule to require large national banks and federal savings associations to offer and provide “fair access” to financial services.
Client Alert | November 30, 2020
Many UK regulated firms will be currently (re-)assessing staff as fit and proper and training staff on the FCA’s (or the PRA’s) Conduct Rules. The FCA has recently banned three individuals from working in the financial services industry for non-financial misconduct outside the workplace.
Client Alert | November 13, 2020
The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published a final notice detailing enforcement action taken against a Hong Kong asset manager for short selling disclosure rule breaches under the Short Selling Regulation (SSR).
Client Alert | November 10, 2020
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP is pleased to announce that Matthew Nunan has joined the firm’s London office as a partner. Nunan, formerly a Managing Director and EMEA Head of Conduct Risk at Morgan Stanley, will focus on complex contentious financial regulatory investigations and disputes.
Press Releases | November 2, 2020
Since the 2016 presidential election, there have been several regulatory developments that go to the heart of the U.S. dual banking system – the quintessentially American system under which banking entities may choose either a state or federal charter. Gibson Dunn lawyers discuss potential issues for the 2020 U.S. election, specifically the extent of state-federal regulatory balance and the degree of judicial control over federal regulatory actions.
Client Alert | October 28, 2020
New York partner Arthur Long is the author of "After a Decade, What is Settled About Dodd-Frank?" published by the American Bar Association's Banking Law Committee Journal in September 2020.
Article | October 23, 2020
On September 25, 2020, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law the California Consumer Financial Protection Law (CCFPL), which was passed by the state legislature on August 31, 2020.
Client Alert | October 13, 2020
On September 21, 2020, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued an interpretive letter that concluded that national banks may hold deposits that serve as reserves for certain stablecoin issuers.
Client Alert | September 29, 2020
One of the thornier areas of law for U.S.-regulated banks and their holding companies is that regarding confidential supervisory information (CSI). Gibson Dunn lawyers discuss two recent meaningful developments in the law regarding CSI.
Client Alert | September 22, 2020
The ongoing coronavirus has caused governments and populations to rethink how to conduct social interactions and in turn how to conduct business on a global scale. Despite the ongoing global public health crisis, the United States Government’s efforts to use its economic leverage to conduct foreign policy continues unabated. Indeed, throughout the first half of 2020, the United States continued to tighten the screws on Iran and Venezuela and has not shied away from using its economic arsenal in its escalating trade war with China.
Client Alert | August 4, 2020
The Senior Managers and Certification Regime has applied to Financial Conduct Authority-solo regulated firms since 9 December 2019. This client alert provides a brief overview of the key changes that firms should have already implemented, summarizes key lessons from the FCA’s approach to enforcement of the regime against the banks, and details the steps that firms should be undertaking prior to the extended deadline of 31 March 2021.
Client Alert | July 23, 2020
In this one-hour webcast, three experienced Gibson Dunn practitioners explain key developments at the New York State Department of Financial Services as of July 2020.
Webcasts | July 9, 2020
On June 25, 2020, the five regulatory agencies responsible for implementing the Dodd-Frank Act’s Volcker Rule finalized their rulemaking, substantially revising the “covered funds” provisions of the regulation.
Client Alert | July 7, 2020
On June 10, 2020, Mr Justice Trower, sitting in the English High Court, handed down his judgment in A v B [2020] EWHC 1491 (Ch). The judgment addressed the treatment of privileged documents that had been disclosed to an auditor by their clients under a limited waiver, with a finding that it was for the auditors (and not their clients) to decide, objectively, if the relevant materials could be withheld on the grounds of privilege, or should be disclosed to the Financial Reporting Council.
Client Alert | June 25, 2020
EMIR Refit came into force on 17 June 2019 with the aim of amending the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR) to address “disproportionate compliance costs, transparency issues and insufficient access to clearing for certain counterparties”.
Client Alert | June 12, 2020