SEC Lowers the PE Threshold for Form PF The SEC is proposing changes to Form PF, which is the reporting form “for certain SEC-registered investment advisers to private funds,” including lowering the threshold for firms that come into scope for the reporting requirement. The SEC proposal “would decrease the reporting threshold for large private equity… Read More >>
FINRA Alleges DriveWealth Broke Regulation SHO Rules
FINRA, the self-regulatory organization for broker-dealers, has censured and fined DriveWealth Institutional LLC, formerly known as Cuttone & Co., $100,000 for alleged violations of Regulation SHO rules. Last February, DriveWealth Holdings, Inc. acquired Cuttone & Co. and renamed it to DriveWealth Institutional. The renamed firm “specializes in execution services for institutional and broker-dealer clients. The… Read More >>
Gensler Mulls New Cybersecurity Rules via Expanded SCI
SEC Chair Gary Gensler wants to breathe new life into the fight against cyberattacks and is calling for a refresh of Regulation Systems Compliance and Integrity (Reg SCI) that might mean new cybersecurity hygiene and incident reporting rules for investment companies, investment advisers, and broker-dealers. During his speech for the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law’s… Read More >>
Senate Makes Behnam the New CFTC Chairman
Lost in the tsunami of federal government budget battle news is the welcome development that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has a new, official chairman — Rostin “Russ” Behnam, and that the stage has been set for a full roster of commissioners. On Dec. 16, the U.S. Senate voted unanimously to approve Rostin Behnam… Read More >>
Wall Street’s New Cop Jolts Enforcement
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reports that it filed 434 new enforcement actions in fiscal year 2021. The SEC’s whistleblower program was “critical to these efforts and had a record-breaking year,” a commission statement notes. FY 2021 “marked the highest number of awards to both the number of individuals and in dollar amounts awarded,”… Read More >>
Did a Deutsche Bank Whistleblower Get Nearly $200M?
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has just announced a record-setting whistleblower award of nearly $200 million but it was quickly followed by a report in The Wall Street Journal that identified the tipster as someone from Deutsche Bank. The CFTC protects all whistleblowers via confidentiality. In a press release dated Oct. 21, CFTC officials acknowledged… Read More >>
CFTC Fines Citi in Second Swaps Reporting Case
The United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission has settled charges against Citibank, N.A. and Citigroup Global Markets Ltd. — two provisionally registered swap dealers, aka Citi — for allegedly “failing to comply with certain swap dealer requirements,” and for related charges of supervision failures. Specifically, the CFTC charged that those two Citi units did not… Read More >>
CFTC Cracks Down on Swaps Data Noncompliance
The CFTC is cracking down on the alleged failures of supervisory systems and other controls that swap dealers and other swap industry participants have set up to be compliant. In particular, the regulator has just announced enforcement actions against Société Générale S.A., Mizuho Capital Markets, and the Refinitiv SEF, among others. “Swap dealer registrants must… Read More >>
RBC Capital Markets Resolves Deal-Flipping Charges
The Securities and Exchange Commission has ordered RBC Capital Markets to pay “more than $800,000 to resolve charges that it engaged in unfair dealing in municipal bond offerings.” While RBC Capital Markets neither admits nor denies the SEC allegations, it has agreed to pay the financial penalty and be censured. In a related settlement, two… Read More >>
SEC Bars Two People from Whistleblower Program
I should not have been surprised to learn that the SEC can bar people from becoming whistleblowers. In an unusual press release, the regulator, which in these cases, cannot name names, has “barred two individuals from the SEC’s whistleblower award program, each of whom filed hundreds of frivolous award applications.” It appears that the regulator’s… Read More >>
