All Things FinReg

Kwasi Kwarteng, the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the new UK government led by Prime Minister Liz Truss, presented his “Growth Plan 2022” to Parliament on 23 September 2022. The Growth Plan 2022 outlines the UK government’s plans to tackle inflation, the cost of living, and energy crises and expand the supply side of the economy. In particular, the chancellor announced new measures to unlock investment by UK pensions schemes in private assets.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) of the US Department of the Treasury issued a final rule on September 29, 2022, implementing the bipartisan Corporate Transparency Act’s beneficial ownership information reporting provisions. What’s noteworthy is that FinCEN used this as an opportunity to expand the definition of beneficial ownership to include any individual who exercises substantial control over the reporting company.

New cryptocurrency legislation awaits California Governor Gavin Newsom’s signature after passing the California Assembly on August 30, 2022. If signed into law, California’s Digital Financial Assets Law would create sweeping requirements that, among other things, would mandate that digital asset exchanges and crypto companies obtain licenses to operate within the State of California, but not until January 2025, as described in more detail below. Many observers have compared the new California legislation to New York State’s BitLicense regulation, which was adopted in 2015.

As of August 11, 2022, approval is now required by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) before acquiring direct or indirect control of an FCA-registered cryptoasset business. Failure to attain such approval is a criminal offense. This is due to the UK Money Laundering Regulations (MLRs) having been updated to apply the change in control regime under Part 12 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA), as modified by Schedule 6B of the updated MLRs, to FCA-registered cryptoasset exchange providers and custodian wallet providers.

A group of state treasurers and state attorneys general (AG) have raised concerns that certain environmental, social, and governance (ESG) features of certain fund disclosures and other marketing collateral could create liability under state Unfair and Deceptive, or Abusive Acts or Practices (UDAAP) and Anti-Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (Anti-BDS) laws.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) recently released its Spring Supervisory Highlights summarizing findings from supervisory exams it conducted between July and December 2021.

More than six years after it was decided, the practical consequences of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit’s Madden v. Midland Funding, LLC decision continue to diminish. The decision—which held that, under some circumstances, a loan originated by a bank became subject to state usury laws once transferred to a non-bank—implicitly rejected the long-standing doctrine of “valid when made” and once threatened to upend the lending industry. It has been repeatedly narrowed and rarely expanded.

On January 5, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) issued a report detailing consumer complaint deficiencies by the national credit reporting agencies (NCRAs). Specifically, the CFPB found that, in 2021, the NCRAs together reported relief in response to less than 2% of covered complaints, down from nearly 25% of covered complaints in 2019. The CFPB noted three fact patterns believed to lead to inaccurate consumer credit reporting and thus potentially the denial of credit or offer of credit on less favorable terms.

The three federal banking agencies (i.e., the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency—collectively, the Agencies) published a final rule (the Rule) on November 23, 2021, requiring “banking organizations” to notify their primary federal regulator within 36 hours in the event of certain types of computer-security incidents. The Rule separately requires “bank service providers” to notify banking organization customers as soon as possible in the event of any incident that has or is reasonably likely to materially affect those customers for four or more hours.

FINRA recently filed a proposed rule change with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on November 12, 2021 that would seek to once again delay the effective date of changes to FINRA Rule 4210 that were previously implemented on December 15, 2016. The amendments were supposed to become effective on January 26, 2022 and the proposed changes would move the effective date to April 26, 2022.