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
The hearing is further evidence of the inability of the U.S. government to deal directly with innovation. The witnesses continue the longstanding but narrower debate over whether the SEC or the CFTC should have jurisdiction. (See, e.g. )
To date, the SEC has done nothing to put forth a workable regulatory scheme for digital assets. The end result of the SEC's assuming jurisdiction would be largely to junk pile the technology.
While the CFTC appears more open to…
The problems with the SEC's position are of policy and process, more than that of law. The new charges raise many questions. If the SEC is of the view that Binance's conduct is illegal, why is it just taking action now? Binance is hardly low profile. Did something new come to the attention of the SEC? What other factors led to the timing of the SEC's charging decision?
It is problematic for the SEC to assert that Binance should have been registered in numerous capacities, when…
The Discussion Draft is by far the most in-the-weeds legislative proposal that has been put forward to date. There are a number of "big picture" items that stand out:
The Discussion Draft produced by the Committee Chairs calls for specific revisions to existing SEC Rules, most significantly the Custody Rule. That should force the SEC to consider what amendments to its rules are required to make them work for digital assets, as opposed to merely repeating that digital assets…Liquidity mismatches are a very real problem for the financial regulators.
The implications of the government response to the recent bank failures may be far more serious than current public perception. Many banks have large undisclosed losses as a result of the impact of inflation on their lending books. The only thing that is keeping these banks afloat is the general acknowledgement that the U.S. government is, at least for now, guaranteeing all depositors at all banks. This is a…