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
Rule 15c3-3 is, in structure, quite a good rule, proven successful at keeping broker-dealers safe (the failure of Lehman Brothers was not because Rule 15c3-3 did not work). However, it is operationally complicated. Going final with the amendments to the Rule during the same period where broker-dealers are required to implement cleared repo on US government securities (which will also require significant changes to firms' Rule 15c3-3 procedures) does not seem like good timing, particularly as…
A notable deletion from the list of permitted investments is bank certificates of deposit. According to the CFTC, the reason for such deletion is that the instrument was not commonly used. Another reason may have been a loss of confidence in such instruments in light of recent bank failures.
At least in the case of the SEC, the outgoing majority shows no inclination to exit gracefully. Yesterday, the , and today, the majority approved a big spend for the . One can reasonably guess that the agency will not comply with the document production request before the Chair leaves office.
Perhaps Treasury should have published these findings before the election.