On 24 February 2020, the Dutch Minister of Finance (the Minister) sent a letter to the Dutch Senate (Eerste Kamer) on the three pending legislative proposals implementing the Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (Vijfde anti-witwasrichtlijn, 5MLD) in the Netherlands: the Act implementing 5MLD (Implementatiewet wijziging vierde anti-witwasrichtlijn); the Act implementing the ultimate beneficial ownership (UBO) register for companies and other legal entities (Implementatiewet registratie uiteindelijk belanghebbenden van vennootschappen en andere juridische entiteiten); and the Bank Data…

The eSports industry is on track to surpass $1 billion in revenue this year. Titans in this industry use different product-control strategies for eSports tournaments. For example, a category of publishers vertically integrate with their premier eSports titles and maintain complete licensing control. Another category gives third parties complete freedom to organize eSports tournaments with very little oversight. Other publishers still have chosen to license their eSports titles through a more traditional franchising model. Regardless…

In September 2019, the Loan Market Association published exposure drafts of Compounded Risk Free Rate Facility Agreements by reference to SONIA and SOFR, being the chosen replacement near risk free rates for LIBOR in the Sterling and USD markets respectively together with commentary inviting market participants to consider various structuring issues which need to be considered if adapting them for use in live transactions (see earlier blog).  By way of follow up, on 20…

On January 29, 2020, the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC)’s finalization of its guidance on how it would assess risks to the US financial system became effective. The Final Guidance, as did the proposed guidance, now focuses on an activities-based approach to assessing such risk, rather than focusing on identifying specific systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs). Our blog post on the proposed guidance from March 2019 may be found here. One of the…

On 18 February 2020, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published its annual Sector Views publication which considers the risks and potential harms to customers across financial services markets. The Sector Views publication includes a summary of the risks likely to impact the general insurance and protection markets. Each sector view describes actual or potential harms that might impact consumers or market effectiveness.…

On 18 February 2020, the FCA published a report on its sector views. These sector views set out the FCA’s annual analysis of the way the financial environment is changing and the impact of these changes on consumers and market effectiveness. The sector views are based on data available at mid-2019. The views are used as a tool for the FCA to keep its priorities under review and focus its resources effectively for its next…

On 17 February 2020, the European Commission (Commission) launched its long-awaited public consultation on the review of MiFID II and MiFIR. The consultation paper is divided into two main sections: Section 1 covering general questions on the overall functioning of the MiFID II and MiFIR regulatory framework (Qs 1 – 6.1) and Section 2 covering specific questions on the existing regulatory framework (Qs 7 – 93). Section 3 includes one “catch-all” question where the Commission…