The U.S. Treasury Department ("Treasury") Office of Foreign Assets Control ("OFAC") designated a Russia-based bank for materially assisting Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. ("PdVSA"), which OFAC sanctioned in January 2019 and described as a "vehicle for corruption, embezzlement, and money laundering." OFAC stated that, pursuant to Executive Order 13850, Evrofinance Mosnarbank ("Evrofinance") "materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, the sanctioned entity." According to OFAC, assets of Evrofinance grew

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia entered a Consent Order ("Order") against a foreign trading platform and its CEO (collectively, the "Defendants") for unlawful bitcoin-related transactions with U.S. customers. The Order resulted from a September 2018 Complaint filed by the CFTC. According to the Order, the Defendants (i) illegally offered commodity transactions that were in the form of "contracts for difference" involving gold and crude oil, (ii) neglected to register as a futures commission merchant with the CFTC and (iii) failed to satisfy their supervisory

In a "dialogue" held at Fordham University, SEC Chair Jay Clayton and Director of Division of Trading and Markets Brett Redfearn discussed (i) improving liquidity for thinly traded securities, (ii) revising SEA Rule 15c2-11, ("Initiation or resumption of quotations without specific information"), as well as the rules applicable to the execution of trades in penny stocks for retail investors and (iii) the deficiencies in "core" market data as compared to proprietary data. On market data, the regulators expressed concern about the current "two-tiered" system. The "core" tier is the consolidated

ISDA proposed amending the 2014 ISDA Credit Derivatives Definitions ("Credit Definitions") for "narrowly tailored credit events" ("NTCEs"). Under the proposal, NTCEs are defined as arrangements with an issuer that cause a credit event leading to a credit default swap settlement while minimizing impact on the issuer. Among other things, the proposal would amend the definition of "failure to pay credit event" in Section 4.5 of the Credit Definitions to add an optional requirement that the relevant failure "result from or in a deterioration in creditworthiness or financial condition" of the

The U.S. Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets Control ("OFAC") issued two revised General Licenses ("GL") related to sanctions imposed with respect to the situation in Venezuela. With the issuance of GL 3D and GL 9C, OFAC extended authorizations covering the wind-down of certain financial contracts or other agreements entered into prior to 4:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on February 1, 2019, involving covered Venezuelan bonds and other securities. These authorizations are now valid through 12:01 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, May 10, 2019 (they were set to expire on March 11, 2019, under