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
In , FINRA said that there were "longstanding questions" on outside business activity dating back to 2017 and 2018 (see, and ). Although the proposed changes seemed to have received generally positive reviews, FINRA opted to let the issue sit for six years without follow through. It is likely that FINRA's revival of the issue reflects the Trump-effect change in regulatory culture. It is notable that the impact extends beyond governmental agencies to self-regulatory organizations.…
The no-action letter refers to an "issuer" relying on a minimum investment amount. There is no obvious reason why a broker-dealer should not likewise be able to rely.
Ordinarily, when a regulator states that it intends to "modernize" rules, that means it intends to adopt more (and more burdensome) rules. Under the new administration, it is reasonable to expect that FINRA will consider where burdens might be reduced without depriving investors of reasonable protections.
At least in one respect, the MFA's comments do not go far enough. Form PF is an utterly useless document and should be jettisoned. It requires detailed and complex information about an area as to which the regulators are largely uninformed, and mandating the collection of tremendous amounts of largely useless data at significant cost to market participants. (See, e.g. )