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Steven Lofchie is the Chief Legal Architect and a co-founder of Caffrey.AI, an AI platform built for law firms, banks, and the financial regulatory industry. He is also a partner at Norton Rose Fulbright, where he advises financial institutions on securities laws, the Commodity Exchange Act, and broker-dealer regulation. Ranked by Chambers USA every year since 2007, he is the author of “Lofchie’s Guide to Broker-Dealer Regulation,” long considered the leading treatise on the subject.

Recent Articles & Comments

In a jury trial, a unanimous verdict is required. Perhaps there ought to be some similar concept of "not guilty" when the SEC brings charges. If not all the Commissioners are convinced that the relevant facts constituted a "red flag," it seems pretty unfair to hold some representative liable, particularly in a case where the representative was not profiting in any way by his conduct.  

Not so long ago, NYDFS was touting itself as the leading state regulator assisting in developing a market for digital assets. Since then, the only coins that NYDFS "greenlists" are Bitcoin and Eth, as well as a few stablecoins. Now, NYDFS touts its enforcement activities and the dollar amount of fines it has imposed. 

FSOC is an organization created by Dodd-Frank with the supposed purpose of monitoring risks to the financial system. There are few organizations that are wrong (or perhaps it would be fairer to say, "not right") as much as FSOC. As , this may result in good part from the make-up of the organization. While it is composed of representatives of many agencies, all of these representatives are from a single party. Thus it would seem to focus on (or create?) systemic risks that reflect the…

Many opponents of a U.S. CBDC object on privacy grounds and the desire to prevent government surveillance of private payments. Mr. Carrillo testified that we already have so little protection from federal government surveillance with respect to our payment activities that a governmental digital currency would not make things any worse, an observation that is downright disturbing. To mitigate data collection and protect privacy, one vision he articulated is the inclusion of "digital cash…