Expert Analysis

• Recent OCC Charter Approvals Signal Fintech Momentum

  

  The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's recent charter approval for Circle, along with faster Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. review procedures, signals a more workable path to national bank and trust charters, meaning fintech firms should prepare regulator-ready applications and plan for intensified competition, say attorneys at Davis Wright.

• Bank Charter Denial Offers Road Map For Stablecoin Issuers

  

  The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's recent denial of Wise's bank charter application signals that stablecoin issuers should expect rigorous scrutiny of anti-money laundering controls, governance, management expertise and affiliate compliance history when applying for federal approval, say attorneys at Katten.

• Complying With Calif. Crypto License Law's 11th-Hour Rewrite

  

  Financial businesses that applied early for the digital asset license now required in California should check their filings and compliance decisions against last-minute updates to the law and its rules, as overlooked changes could leave companies budgeting for nonexistent bonds, relying on an outdated exemption or racking up steep fines, say attorneys at Astraea Counsel.

• Decoding Arbitral Disputes: Award Enforcement Is Just Step 1

  

  In Qatar National Bank v. South Sudan and Bank of South Sudan, a D.C. federal court recently confirmed a $1 billion arbitral award, but the judgment itself remains only the entrance to the asset-recovery exercise, says Josep Galvez at 4-5 Gray's Inn Square.

• Series

  Going To Hardcore Shows Makes Me A Better Lawyer

  

  While government contracts law and the hardcore scene may seem entirely unrelated, in my experience, both are about community, focus, being prepared for the unexpected and managing chaos, says Isaac Natter at Fluet.

• How Axing SEC Trade-Through Rule Could Reshape Markets

  

  The proposed elimination of a Securities and Exchange Commission rule that mandates a price benchmark for equity securities trades could allow blockchain-based trades to compete with legacy frameworks in registered markets, potentially serving as a test case for updated regulatory models, say Alex Zozos at Superstate, and Lewis Rinaudo Cohen and Edward Leaf at Cahill Gordon.

• What Regulatory 'Reputation Risk' Purge Means For Banks

  

  Banks should expect closer scrutiny of account closures and service denials after federal regulators recently stripped "reputation risk" from supervisory guidance, and should tie customer decisions to documented, objective legal and financial criteria to protect against debanking-related enforcement, say attorneys at Troutman.

• Student Loan Revamp Leaves Bankruptcy Untouched

  

  Recent changes to the Graduate PLUS student loan program may moderate borrowing and simplify repayment, but they may also shift financial distress into a bankruptcy system whose treatment of educational debt remains largely unchanged, say Jaclynn McDonnell at Stevens & Lee.

• NYDFS Swedbank Order Offers Lessons On Candor

  

  The New York State Department of Financial Services' consent order with Swedbank reflects the department's broad view of its investigative authority, emphasizes transparency, and underscores the risks of intrusive investigations that can occur if a regulator believes that it was misled, say attorneys at Paul Hastings.

• Rethinking Risk And Value In Private Credit Disputes

  

  Private credit disputes will increasingly turn on whether lenders recognized enterprise-value risk and updated marks as borrower conditions changed, making valuation processes, trigger frameworks and portfolio oversight critical for investors and litigants, say Isil Erel at the Ohio State University and Farooq Javed at The Brattle Group.

• Lessons From 5 Months Of DOJ Corporate Policy Deals

  

  Recent declinations and prosecution agreements between the U.S. Department of Justice and corporations since the March unveiling of the corporate enforcement and voluntary disclosure policy provide takeaways for management considering how to respond to corporate misconduct, says Brendan Quigley at Baker Botts.

• Calif. OppFi Suit Outlines Key Criteria For Bank Partnerships

  

  A California state court's recent ruling in OppFi v. Hewlett offers fintech-bank partnerships a blueprint for structuring lending programs to withstand future true lender challenges, while signaling that enforcement theories may face added scrutiny under the state's ban on underground regulations, say attorneys at Womble Bond.

• Justices' FTC Ruling Weakens Qui Tam's Constitutional Base

  

  The U.S. Supreme Court’s holding in Trump v. Slaughter, expanding presidential control over those exercising executive power, suggests that courts may be receptive to arguments challenging the constitutional foundations of the False Claims Act’s qui tam mechanism, says Daniel Passeser at Wiggin.

• 9th Circ. Rule Block Unlikely To Deter FinCEN Cartel Focus

  

  The Ninth Circuit recently blocked the Financial Crimes Enforcement Unit's border cash reporting rule, interpreting it as an impermissible use of an emergency anti-money laundering tool, but regulators are more likely to see the opinion as a road map for building a more defensible rule, say attorneys at Bradley Arant.

• 5 Financial Statement Fraud Red Flags To Spot Post-Sripetch

  

  The U.S. Supreme Court recently held in Sripetch v. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that disgorgement exists to strip a wrongdoer of unjust enrichment, not merely to compensate victims for what they lost, shifting the work at the center of securities fraud cases in five ways, says Rand Manasse at Green Lane Partners.