On April 29, 2019, just months into her new job at the New York State Department of Financial Services (“DFS”), acting DFS Superintendent Linda Lacewell announced a significant reorganization within the financial and insurance regulator. The new Consumer Protection and Financial Enforcement Division (the “CPFED”) combines seven previously separate divisions and units – Enforcement, Investigations and Intelligence, the Civil Investigations Unit, the Producers Unit, the Consumer Examinations Unit, the Student Protection Unit, and the Holocaust Claims Processing Office – under a single executive deputy superintendent. Lacewell appointed Katherine Lemire, a former state and federal prosecutor, to head the newly-minted division.
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SEC Issues Risk Alert on Customer Privacy Safeguards
Earlier this month, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) took a break from its recent focus on digital assets and the Best Interest fiduciary standard to publish a Risk Alert encouraging investment advisers and broker-dealers to revisit their policies and procedures relating to Regulation S-P (“Reg S-P”) (17 C.F.R. Part 248, Subpart A), which sets out requirements designed to protect customer information and records. The Alert highlights several key compliance issues identified by the SEC’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (“OCIE”) during exams completed in the past two years.
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Crypto Firms Make Inroads with State and Federal Regulators
Over the past couple of years, the crypto industry has come under heavy scrutiny from skeptical regulators seeking to root out fraud and protect investors amid the initial coin offering boom that generated over $4 billion in 2017. However, this skepticism is starting to give way to a more business-friendly attitude.
Crypto firms have made notable headway with regulators in recent months, securing authorizations to act as custodians of digital assets and working towards approval of the first bitcoin-based exchange traded fund (“ETF”). These developments may reflect an evolving collaborative environment that bodes well for the future of blockchain-based innovations.
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New York’s AG Enters the Cryptocurrency Ring as Federal, State Authorities Find Regulatory Footing
On April 17, 2018, the New York State Attorney General (“NYAG”) sent a “Virtual Markets Integrity Initiative Questionnaire” to 13 companies operating virtual currency trading platforms. The questionnaire consists of 34 questions covering a number of topics, including ownership and control, operation and fees, trading policies and procedures, outages and other suspensions of trading, internal controls, and privacy and money laundering.
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New Legislation Introduced in 2017 Signals the Beginning of a Strong Push for AML Reform
There is universal acknowledgement that anti-money laundering (“AML”) monitoring has become progressively costlier (both in terms of time and money) since the Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”) was passed nearly five decades ago, and that compliance has become increasingly burdensome, especially for smaller regional and community institutions. According to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”), nearly one million suspicious activity reports (“SAR”) were filed in 2016 (up from 669,000 in 2013). According to a 2016 report by the Heritage Foundation, the cost of compliance with current AML rules could be as much as $8 billion a year. Notwithstanding the tremendous resources spent on AML compliance, money laundering is still rampant. The U.N. has estimated that the amount of money laundered every year is between $800 billion and $2 trillion dollars. However, according to a 2011 report issued by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, less than one percent of this amount is seized by law enforcement.
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FINRA Fetes Emerging Blockchain Technology at Industry Conference
Blockchain technology (“Blockchain”), also known as Distributed Ledger Technology, stands poised to transform the future of the financial industry. Generally speaking, Blockchain enables the creation of a continuously growing ledger of transactions that is resistant to alteration and ensures the integrity of new transactions through a system of checks-and-balances built into the system’s code. The combination of its speed, versatility, and built-in security features lend the technology well to applications in the financial industry. In a timely effort, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”) recently gathered top U.S. financial regulators and industry stakeholders to participate in its 2017 Blockchain Symposium. In a series of engaging discussions, panelists hashed out the potential benefits and pitfalls of the dynamic technology.
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Financial Regulators Take Note: The Supreme Court’s Newest Member is a Tough Taskmaster
On April 10, 2017, Neil Gorsuch was sworn in as the Supreme Court’s 113th justice. While his experience on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals with cases involving financial regulation may be limited, certain of his decisions reflect an identifiable hostility towards executive agencies that, in his view, act in excess of the powers accorded them by statutory and constitutional law. These decisions suggest that the High Court’s newest justice will keep a close eye on how financial regulators go about their business.
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New York State Department of Financial Services Cybersecurity Regulation Poised to Reshape Existing Regulatory Landscape
In late December, New York State’s Department of Financial Services (“DFS”) released its revised proposed cybersecurity regulation (the “DFS Rule”). While the revisions pare back some of the DFS Rule’s original requirements and add some much needed flexibility, the regulation will still impose many new obligations upon a wide array of financial institutions doing business in New York. The DFS Rule will become effective on March 1, 2017.
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New York State Department of Financial Services Proposes Cybersecurity Regulations for Financial Services Companies
If the New York State Department of Financial Services (“DFS”) has its way, come January 1, 2017, financial services companies that require a form of authorization to operate under the banking, insurance, or financial services laws (“Covered Entities”) will be required to comply with a new set of comprehensive cybersecurity regulations aimed at safeguarding information systems and nonpublic information.
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SEC Steps Up Cybersecurity Enforcement with $1 Million Fine Against Morgan Stanley
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s (“SEC”) recent $1 million settlement with Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC (“MSSB”) marked a turning point in the agency’s focus on cybersecurity issues, an area that the agency has proclaimed a top enforcement priority in recent years. The MSSB settlement addressed various cybersecurity deficiencies that led to the misappropriation of sensitive data for approximately 730,000 customer accounts.
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