MVA White Collar Defense, Investigations, and Regulatory Advice Blog

A black swan has arrived – the Pandemic of 2020 and with it a bear market. As with previous black swan events, experts and leaders are in learning mode, with the facts and events evolving hourly. As my financial advisor told me, this event cannot be modeled. Nonetheless, there are lessons learned from past crises – we are facing not just a health crisis uprooting lives and businesses, but also we can expect significant economic impact. The event will have effects longer than initially predicted or imagined.

In such circumstances, what should be on in-house lawyers’ and leaders ...

Last week, the House Financial Services Committee Subcommittee on National Security, International Development and Monetary Policy held a hearing on transnational trafficking networks and illicit finances.  Titled “The Traffickers’ Roadmap: How Bad Actors Exploit Financial Systems to Facilitate the Illicit Trade in People, Animals, Drugs, and Weapons,” the hearing was billed as the beginning of a bi-partisan counter-trafficking initiative to explore legislation to improve (i) the financial sector’s role in identifying trafficking; and (ii) communication ...

Charlotte White Collar, Regulatory Defense and Investigations Member Valecia M. McDowell and Financial Regulatory Advice and Response Member Edward O'Keefe will both serve as speakers at the 2020 SIFMA C&L Annual Seminar.

MVA's Human Trafficking Pro Bono Project Leader, Sarah Byrne and her fight for victims of human trafficking was highlighted by Charlotte Magazine. The article titled, "Charlotte Attorney Sarah Byrne on Fighting for Victims of Human Trafficking" was published on February 13. Read the full article here.

By: Elena F. Mitchell and Frank Schall.  The U.S. Department of the Treasury recently published final regulations to further implement the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act of 2018 (“FIRRMA“) and to better address national security concerns resulting from certain investments and transactions in the U.S.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (“CFIUS”) is an interagency committee chaired by the U.S. Department of the Treasury and tasked with evaluating certain foreign investments and transactions for national security-related ...

Anti-Money Laundering and Know Your Customer departments at financial institutions are on the front lines of human trafficking.  Not only does enhanced transaction monitoring help law enforcement identify trafficking circumstances through generation of Suspicious Activity Reports but it helps avoid high risk lending relationships and cuts the power source of businesses or people who facilitate trafficking.

Recently, there has been an emergence of legal action related to organizational responsibility for human trafficking.  In November, the Australian Transaction ...

On November 6, 2019, the Fraud Section of the Department of Justice with the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas, and the CFTC, announced settlements of their spoofing and market manipulation investigations of Tower Research Capital LLC (Tower Research).  The penalties are the highest in a spoofing case to date. The Department’s settlement again indicates that the Fraud Section has concluded spoofing and market manipulation are widespread, so general deterrence requires harsher sanction. However, there is also important history.  The predicted ...

Charlotte Financial Regulatory Advice & Response Co-Head Neil Bloomfield served as a panelist for Mecklenburg County Bar’s 19^th Annual Banking and Finance Forum which took place on November 22. Bloomfield joined others from Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and Bryan Cave to discuss “LIBOR Transition Challenges.”  During the panel, Mr. Bloomfield discussed the latest regulatory guidance and best practices in managing the transition away from LIBOR to SOFR.  

MVA is proud to once again be a sponsoring partner for The Clearing House + Bank Policy Institute Annual Conference, which took take place in New York on November 19–21. Now in its ninth year, The Clearing House + Bank Policy Institute Annual Conference is the leading conference for key regulatory, legal, and payments issues facing America’s largest commercial banks. Held for two and a half days at The Pierre Hotel in New York, the TCH + BPI Annual Conference brings together the industry’s leading executives and thought leaders – C-suite financial services executives ...

On September 16, 2019, the Department of Justice and the CFTC jointly announced the indictment of three precious metal traders for an alleged eight year conspiracy to manipulate gold, silver, platinum, and palladium futures prices and civil charges based upon the same conduct. (One former trader from the institution had already pleaded guilty to one count of commodities fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, commodities fraud, price manipulation, and spoofing; a second former trader had pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to engage in spoofing and one count of ...