On April 18, 2019, the U.S. anti-money laundering (“AML”) agency, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”), announced that it had assessed a civil money penalty of $35,350 against Eric Powers of Kern County, California, for acting as an unregistered money services (“MSB”) business. Mr. Powers also agreed to cease engaging in any activity that might make him be required to register as an MSB under FinCEN regulations, and to not participate directly or indirectly in…

On April 17, 2019, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced that it had designated Banco Central de Venezuela (Banco Central), the country’s Central Bank, as subject to U.S. economic sanctions. A current director also was sanctioned; several other Banco Central management and directors previously had been designated for economic sanctions. The designation means that all property and interest in property of Banco Central and the director and any entity that is…

On March 13, 2019, the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) published in the Federal Register proposed revised interpretive guidance (Proposed Guidance) on how the FSOC would assess risks to the US financial system, prioritizing an activities-based approach, rather than focusing on identifying specific systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs), which come under the FRB’s purview for enhanced regulation. The FSOC, composed of federal and state financial services agencies (financial regulators), was established pursuant to the Dodd-Frank…

In a decision with implications for private securities fraud suits, the United States Supreme Court recently held that an investment banker that copied and pasted misstatements from his boss into emails to prospective investors committed securities fraud, despite not being the actual “maker” of the statement, because the statement was attributed to another person. In a Legal Update “US Supreme Court expands potential liability for securities fraud,” Kevin J. Harnisch, a partner…

With the next 10 days being crucial in the Brexit process, following the UK House of Commons rejecting the draft withdrawal agreement for a third time and the European Council calling an emergency summit for April 10, 2019, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) and the US banking, farm credit and housing agencies have issued interim final regulations to address regulatory requirements of certain swap transactions subject to US regulations in the event of a…

Last month, the Venezuelan Ministry of National Commerce issued a notice requiring patent and trademark fees to be paid in the cryptocurrency issued by the Venezuelan government — the Petro, which supposedly is backed by Venezuela’s oil and mineral reserves. As noted in previous posts, the United States has been increasing its economic sanctions on Venezuela. Last year, the president issued an executive order specifically prohibiting US persons from engaging in financial transactions using…