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 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
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 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
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
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 December 3, 2020, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission Division of Enforcement announced a settlement with Vitol Inc., an energy and commodities trading firm in Houston, Texas.
Client Alert | January 20, 2021
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
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission recently announced that its Division of Enforcement issued new guidance to its staff when considering a recommendation that the Commission recognize a respondent’s cooperation, self-reporting, or remediation in an enforcement order. The Guidance represents the latest step in the Commission’s ongoing efforts to provide clarity and transparency regarding the Division’s practices and procedures.
Client Alert | November 30, 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
On January 30, 2020, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) approved a proposed rule on federal speculative position limits for derivatives, to conform to the amendments to the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) resulting from the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
Client Alert | March 2, 2020
On December 18, 2019, three divisions of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) released no-action letters that provide relief to market participants in connection with the industry-wide initiative to transition swaps that reference the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) and other interbank offered rates (IBORs) to swaps that reference alternative risk-free reference rates.
Client Alert | January 14, 2020
Gibson Dunn lawyers set out what steps UK counterparties to derivatives transactions should take now in relation to their reporting arrangements to ensure a smooth transition on and after Brexit.
Client Alert | December 10, 2019
On October 9, 2019, the U.S. Department of the Treasury published proposed regulations on the transition from interbank offered rates (IBORs) to other reference rates.
Client Alert | October 15, 2019
On August 20, 2019, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Board of Directors of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation approved an expected rewrite of the regulation on proprietary trading, along with some minor amendments to the provisions governing private equity funds and hedge funds.
Client Alert | September 9, 2019
On May 28, 2019, final text was published in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) for substantive amendments to the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR).
Client Alert | June 5, 2019
On May 13, 2019, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) published a notice of proposed rulemaking titled Proposed Amendments to the Commission’s Regulations Relating to Certain Swap Data Repository and Data Reporting Requirements.
Client Alert | May 16, 2019
Last year, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued final rules requiring globally systematic banking organizations ("G-SIBs") in the United States and their subsidiaries, as well as all U.S. operations of non-U.S. G-SIBs (each, a "Covered Entity") to include in their qualified financial contracts language that provides for contractual stays on early termination rights.
Client Alert | December 7, 2018
Since the result of the Brexit referendum was announced in June 2016, there has been significant commentary regarding the potential effects of the UK's withdrawal from the EU on the financial services industry.
Client Alert | October 11, 2018
One of the remaining significant issues facing the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Board) is its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (Proposed Rule) relating to the physical commodities activities of U.S.
Client Alert | April 28, 2017