3 Things About… This is an inaugural post in an occasional series that will attempt to distill a select current event to its essence. Consistent with the (arguably bland yet) very accurate name of our blog, the focus of this series will be on regulatory and transactional issues related to derivatives and repurchase agreements.  Our first topic is.. …The CFTC’s Proposed Amendments to Form CPO-PQR…

Re-Proposed Rule 18f-4: How Not to Distinguish Commitments from Derivatives is the second in a series of posts about the proposed treatment of so-called “unfunded commitment agreements” under re-proposed Rule 18f-4 under the Investment Company Act of 1940. We thank our colleague Stephen A. Keen, who originally published this post at our sister blog, the Asset Management ADVocate. Good day. Good to pause and think about commitments before we commit to a regulatory course…

Does Re-Proposed Rule 18f-4 Have Commitment Issues? is the first in a series of posts about the proposed treatment of so-called “unfunded commitment agreements” under re-proposed Rule 18f-4 under the Investment Company Act of 1940. We thank our colleague Stephen A. Keen, who originally published  this post at our sister blog, the Asset Management ADVocate. Good day.  Good to face commitment issues head on! DR2…

My initial posts on re-proposed Rule 18f-4 reflect my generally favorable reactions to the SEC’s attempt to develop a practical, hence imperfect, means of implementing the limitations on senior securities required by Section 18 of the Investment Company Act of 1940. My initial series of post written at the time Rule 18f-4 was first proposed attempted to explain some of the inherent difficulties of this task. Read the full article on our sister blog Asset …

On April 6, 2020, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) Office of Customer Education and Outreach (“OCEO”) published an additional customer advisory (“Advisory”) cautioning the public regarding potential fee scams. OCEO noted that many of these schemes are now targeting individuals that may be financially impacted by the Coronavirus pandemic. OCEO previously published a Customer Advisory on March 31, 2020 regarding potential fraudulent schemes posing to take advantage of market volatility related to the pandemic.…

Three federal bank regulatory agencies – the FRB, FDIC, and OCC – today announced two COVID-19 related actions to support the U.S. economy and allow banking organizations to continue to lending to households and businesses: Allow early adoption of the “standardized approach for measuring counterparty credit risk,” or “SA-CCR,” which is a new way for banking organizations to measure counterparty credit risk, in pertinent part, from derivatives; and Provide certain banks with an additional two…

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the financial markets have experienced significant volatility. During the course of this volatility, exchanges have halted trading multiple times after declines in trading trigged circuit breakers. In addition, trading floors are transitioning to electronic trading in efforts to prevent the transmission of COVID-19 on physical trading floors. With the recent turmoil, this post provides a high-level summary of the various types of circuit breakers and what can be…