Chief Legal Architect and a co-founder of Caffrey.AI
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
The problems with the SEC's position are of policy and process, more than that of law. The new charges raise many questions. If the SEC is of the view that Binance's conduct is illegal, why is it just taking action now? Binance is hardly low profile. Did something new come to the attention of the SEC? What other factors led to the timing of the SEC's charging decision?
It is problematic for the SEC to assert that Binance should have been registered in numerous capacities, when…
The Discussion Draft is by far the most in-the-weeds legislative proposal that has been put forward to date. There are a number of "big picture" items that stand out:
The Discussion Draft produced by the Committee Chairs calls for specific revisions to existing SEC Rules, most significantly the Custody Rule. That should force the SEC to consider what amendments to its rules are required to make them work for digital assets, as opposed to merely repeating that digital assets…Liquidity mismatches are a very real problem for the financial regulators.
The implications of the government response to the recent bank failures may be far more serious than current public perception. Many banks have large undisclosed losses as a result of the impact of inflation on their lending books. The only thing that is keeping these banks afloat is the general acknowledgement that the U.S. government is, at least for now, guaranteeing all depositors at all banks. This is a…
The size of the increase in the initial margin requirements may serve to demonstrate the fact that central clearing is being somewhat oversold. The clearing organizations may protect themselves by demanding more margin in a period of market volatility, but that additional margin has to come from somewhere.
It would be interesting to know how market participants dealt with the demands for more margin; specifically, were they forced to liquidate the relevant positions, or…