On August 17, 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced the adoption of amendments to simplify and update disclosure requirements.^[1] Although the amendments are voluminous in length and breadth of provisions impacted, many of the changes are ministerial and are not expected to have a significant impact on the information that companies disclose or the time and cost associated with preparing periodic disclosures. The SEC adopted these changes to implement the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act^[2] and in furtherance of its objective^[3] to reform duplicative, overlapping or outdated disclosure in light of other SEC disclosure requirements, U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) or changes in the information environment.

Partner Barnabas Reynolds (London-Financial Institutions Advisory & Financial Regulatory) was a speaker and panelist at the launch in London of a paper entitled "The Ideal US-UK Free Trade Agreement," which he co-authored. A similar launch took place simultaneously in the Houses of Congress, Washington DC.

For the past 16 years, we have published the Corporate Governance & Executive Compensation Survey—an invaluable resource for anyone interested in corporate governance and executive compensation best practices.

The National Futures Association (NFA) has adopted an interpretive notice that requires futures commission merchants, introducing brokers, commodity pool operators and commodity trading advisors to disclose to customers certain potential risks involved when dealing with virtual currencies and virtual currency derivatives.

In this week's newsletter, we provide a snapshot of the principal U.S., European and global financial regulatory developments of interest to banks, investment firms, broker-dealers, market infrastructure providers, asset managers and corporates.

Partners Mei Lian (London-Finance), Marwa Elborai (London-Capital Markets) and Of Counsel Clifford Atkins (London-Finance) hosted a podcast with Debtwire in which they discuss the highlights of the Frigoglass restructuring. The podcast looks at the issues involved in advising the Frigoglass Group on its successful capital restructuring, which included the use of an English scheme of arrangement. 

Partners Geert Goeteyn (Brussels-Antitrust) and John Cove (San Francisco-Antitrust & Litigation) have conducted a comparative analysis of parental liability in cartel infringements in the EU and the U.S. for Getting The Deal Through’s – Cartels published in August 2018.

Under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA, December 22, 2017), tax-exempt investors must now calculate unrelated business taxable income (UBTI) separately with respect to each trade or business. As a result, a deduction from one unrelated trade or business for a taxable year may no longer be used to offset income from a different unrelated trade or business for the same taxable year.

In this week's newsletter, we provide a snapshot of the principal U.S., European and global financial regulatory developments of interest to banks, investment firms, broker-dealers, market infrastructure providers, asset managers and corporates.

On August 14, 2018, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit issued a decision holding that section 547(c)(4) of the Bankruptcy Code, which provides a defense to the avoidance of preferential transfers to the extent the transferee provided new value to the debtor, does not require new value to remain unpaid as of the date the bankruptcy petition was filed. In so holding, the Eleventh Circuit aligned itself with the Fourth, Fifth, Eighth and Ninth Circuits in refusing to read a requirement into the plain language of the statute that the new value extended to the debtor “remain unpaid.”