On Wednesday, May 5, 2021, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) instituted an administrative proceeding under Rule 102(e) of the SEC Rules of Practice against Seth P. Levine, Esq., a 52-year-old New Jersey attorney (also admitted in New York) residing in Teaneck, Bergen County, New Jersey, regarding charges of fraud through his LLC.» Read More

This is a supplement to our prior articles regarding the phasing out of LIBOR (see “LIBOR Is Fading Away” and “LIBOR Is Fading Away; But, Perhaps, Not as Quickly as Thought“). For decades, lenders have extended credit facilities, both large and small, using LIBOR-based interest rates and documents relating to these facilities.» Read More

On Wednesday, March 31, 2021, the one-year waiver of the applicability of the Supplementary Leverage Ratio (“SLR”) to banks, which was granted by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (the “Fed”) on April 1, 2020, expires and, despite vigorous pleas from America’s biggest commercial banks, the Fed announced on Friday, March 19, 2021, that the waiver would not be extended.» Read More

In March 2001, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) published Notice 01-18, pursuant to which the SEC approved rules requiring “Fixed Income Transaction Reporting And Dissemination” under SEC Rule 6200 Series, so that information about the trading of corporate bonds and certain structured products would be publicly available.» Read More

As discussed in our November 17, 2020, blog post, “LIBOR Is Fading Away,” the London Interbank Offering Rate (“LIBOR”) became a widely accepted interest rate in the 1970s in London, under an arrangement eventually formalized in 1984 by the British Bankers Association.» Read More

Alternative Trading Systems

On Monday, September 28, 2020, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) proposed to extend the scope of Regulation ATS to trading in government securities. Regulation ATS (“Alternative Trading Systems”) was originally adopted by the SEC in 1998 in response to the then growth of trading of equity securities not registered on a securities exchange.» Read More

Please note that this has been updated on December 3, 2020, at “LIBOR Is Fading Away; But, Perhaps, Not as Quickly as Thought.”

For decades, lenders have extended credit facilities, both large and small, using LIBOR-based interest rates and documents relating to these facilities, such as promissory notes as adjustable mortgages, and often contain LIBOR-related provisions.» Read More

Many years ago, in the 1940s, there was a series of B movies about a private eye named Boston Blackie, a former jewel thief turned investigator. Those movies were followed (1951-1953) by a weekly television show featuring the same actor, Chester Morris, in the title role.» Read More

The Great Plains Trust Company, Inc., was chartered in April 1994 by the State Bank Commissioner of Kansas to transact a general trust company business, (but was not chartered to nor did it) accept deposits. Its initial business was to “provide investment management services to employee benefit plans” (according to the Trust Company’s history on its website).» Read More

Banking, at least since the passage of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913 and the creation of Federal Deposit Insurance under the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 (FDIC insurance actually became effective January 1, 1934), has been seen (at least in popular portrayals in books and movies) as a rather staid business conducted in marble edifices by men (although that is changing) who were reserved and rather aloof.» Read More