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

Collecting outsized fines for violations does not evidence effective regulation. It demonstrates that the SEC is a powerful regulator and can impose its will.

Mr. Gensler's statement that the $1 billion in fines for recordkeeping violations were 10 times the level of previous fines for similar violations evidences a lack of proportionality between the underlying violation and the penalty (see ). At the end of the year, the SEC will publish its annual recap of its enforcement actions,…

It seems inevitable that any ESG disclosure requirements imposed by the SEC will be challenged on at least three grounds: (i) authority under the statute to impose disclosure requirements that are not based on financial materiality, (ii) compliance with the Administrative Procedure Act and (iii) failure to conduct a sufficient cost-benefit analysis. SEC Commissioners and have expressed not only skepticism as to the disclosure requirement, but more importantly, as to the rule making process…

The ABA letter serves as an immediate and direct rejoinder to , which she described as a center of "rampant fraud." Although the ABA letter does not directly reference the Warren letter, ABA responded effectively to her negative assertions. For example, Senator Warren said that fraud on Zelle increased year over year, but that would not be surprising given the rapid, concurrent increase in the number of Zelle transactions. Likewise, contrary to Senator Warren's attack on the banks for not…

Essentially, Mr. Chopra argues that a customer should have access to, and control over, its financial records, just as a customer (patient) has control over its medical records, which it has the right to transfer from one doctor to another.