My partner, Heidi VonderHeide, has busied herself these last few months learning everything she can about Reg BI. Happily, here is her post on the subject, and it doesn’t predict gloom and doom in the new year as that regulation is implemented. – Alan
Just before the Holidays, I attended FINRA’s one-day Reg BI seminar…
Between the usual holiday season madness and a recent trial, I have been a little tied up lately. Happily, Chris Seps has stepped up with this excellent piece on Reg BI. – Alan
My young boys will sometimes chase me around the house, catch me, and yell “gotcha” as they drag me off to…
Selflessly, Blaine Doyle recently attended a presentation here in Chicago by the SEC and CFTC, so you didn’t have to do it yourself. Here is his recount of the highlights. – Alan
Anyone who has sat through a talk by financial regulators is undoubtedly familiar with the refrain from the individuals that they do not speak for the Commission and that the opinions offered are their own. Even with that disclosure (and they ALWAYS make that disclosure), regulators are still notoriously tight lipped when it comes to just about anything, but especially if it relates to Enforcement. However, when two high ranking officials from the CFTC and SEC decided to present, as the star attractions, at the Chicago Bar Association, they had no choice but to spill the beans. While nobody would accuse them of having given up state secrets, they did offer some insights into where their respective Commissions are and, more importantly, where they are going. With that in mind, here is what they had to say (with special emphasis on the securities side):
While the government shutdown of early 2019 is ancient history to most of us, the speakers from both the CFTC and SEC emphasized the disruption that the break caused to their respective organizations and personnel. Moreover, on the issue of government funding, they both noted that their organizations are understaffed from past hiring freezes and are trying to backfill positions that have been open for some time. The speaker from the CFTC mentioned that in some respects his organization had been in “triage” mode due to personnel shortages and that he was hoping that the additional hires will help ease the work load. So why does this matter to the reader? If you work in the industry, it would be reasonable to expect that as both organizations hire additional staff, scrutiny on registrants and, possibly, the number of enforcement actions will increase in the coming years.…
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Most of the time, the cases I write about were some other lawyer’s. In some respects, it’s easier to offer comments when it isn’t my case. I can, hopefully, be more objective, less pissed off (when the result is one I disagree with, of course), and content merely to mine the case for interesting lessons…
I am hardly saying that SEC Regulation S-P is the sexiest of regulations. I mean, has any customer is history actually read one of those exciting statement stuffers that discloses in some dense font a BD’s privacy policy? Likely not, but, nevertheless, it remains that in this day and age, with hacking and phishing and…
I have been busy the last month getting ready for a big arbitration, and attending the first week of what looks like is going to be a four- or five-week slog when all is said and done. So, I am just catching up on some recent developments, and mulling over what might be of interest…
My partner, Ken Berg, writes about his recent meeting with the NCLA, a group that anyone who has an administrative practice should be familiar with. – Alan
I had the privilege of being invited to attend in Washington, D.C., on February 28, 2019, the inaugural panel discussion hosted by a relatively new nonprofit civil rights…
I recently had to the opportunity to sit in on a talk from high ranking CFTC and SEC enforcement officials at a local bar association meeting. The purpose of the get together was, in part, to let industry folks and their lawyers know what the regulators will be focusing on in the near future in…
A little over a year ago, I blogged about a FINRA Enforcement action against an Ameriprise rep – but, notably, not Ameriprise – to highlight what a great job the firm did in ensuring that its sales force was not engaging in any undisclosed outside business activities. It had a robust supervisory procedure, with multiple…
