Partner
Norton Rose Fulbright US LLP
Steven Lofchie is a Partner based in New York. He advises financial institutions and corporate clients on the securities laws and the Commodity Exchange Act, with particular focus on the regulation of broker-dealers, swap dealers, investment funds and other market intermediaries. Steven's transactional practice focuses on securities credit and derivative transactions.
Recent Articles & Comments
Here is an excerpt from Commissioner Johnson's remarks:
Greening claims made in connection with carbon offsets are, for now, unverifiable. Even putting aside cases where an offset might be an outright scam, it is incredibly difficult to know whether a given project actually results in reduced carbon emissions or promised carbon sequestration. Increasingly, investors and courts are concluding that corporations have also engaged in greenclaiming by making difficult-to-verify corporate…Over-burdening regulated firms does not protect retail investors; it likely drives regulated firms away from even attempting to serve retail investors. It is unsurprising that retail investors are turning to unregulated sources of information, such as social media. The inevitable effect of rules such as Exchange Act Regulation Best Interest is that they likely make it impractical for regulated broker-dealers to provide investment advice to retail investors. See . The SEC's position…
This is the third recent enforcement action of this type; too many to be a coincidence. See; .
Firms should review their employment and separation agreements.
If ICI, which is largely the investment vehicle for retail investors, finds the rulemakings too much, perhaps the SEC should take that as a strong signal that it really is too much.