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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

A U.S. dollar CBDC seems inevitable. When Senator Warren and former CFTC Chair Giancarlo agree on something, on anything, it is probably time to act. At what point does continuing to conduct studies create delays that may weaken the competitive position of the dollar in the global economy (or at least fail to capitalize on its strengths)?

Chair Gensler raises important questions on market structure. Markets and market technology have changed since the adoption of Regulation NMS. Improvements require periodic and substantial revisits.

That said, pushing for T+0 settlement seems to be evidence of an overwillingness to force changes that may be detrimental in practice. The rate and amount of change simply may be more than businesses can bear. The impetus to move to T+1 settlement was arguably an overreaction to issues…

The FINRA proposals are significant not only as to the volume of information required to be reported, but also as to the technology that will be required to deliver this information to FINRA and for FINRA to sift through and organize it. While there is no doubt that certain of this information will benefit the regulators in better understanding the market, firms should consider what the costs will be of providing the information, and whether there is a subset of the information that would…

The SEC's action dismissing Chair Duhnke and Chair Gensler's intention to replace the entire PCAOB board are notable in at least three respects.

First, and as a practical matter, the SEC's change in PCAOB leadership will most likely result in a significant increase in enforcement actions against accounting firms and individual accountants. That accountants may be targeted more aggressively in enforcement actions will certainly have an impact on the relationship between accountants and…