“Pop the Champagne but Don’t Get Too Drunk”: HVCRE Reform Passes the House

By Krystyna Blakeslee and Gina Leahey on Posted in HVCRE

When House Speaker Paul Ryan announced earlier this month that the House would vote on S.2155, I wasn’t holding my breath (you know you’re on your last lame duck leg when a “senior GOP lawmaker” says you’ve “run out of juice”).

Miracles do happen AND sometimes I love to be wrong (but – shh…don’t tell my husband): In the spirit of deal making, the House just passed S. 2155 (the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act) with bipartisan support (Yup – the Dems and the Republicans did this in both the House and the Senate…maybe there is more to come!). The President still needs to sign the bill before it becomes law, which everyone expects will happen soon. Continue Reading

D.C. Circuit to CFPB: “Go forth and conquer!” CFPB Responds: “No thanks.”

By Jonathan Gaynor, Gina Leahey and John Ludwig on Posted in Commercial Mortgage Finance, Financial Reform, Regulatory

In seven short years, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has managed to court controversy across the political spectrum.  Under the leadership of former Director Richard Cordray, the bureau (for better or worse) tested the limits of its jurisdiction and enforcement power in a wide range of areas, including the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act and Equal Credit Opportunity Act, student loan servicing, and let’s not forget the since-disavowed arbitration rule.  Enter new Acting Director Mick Mulvaney, who, along with the rest of the Trump administration, is sending the clearest of signals that he does not intend to “push the envelope” at the CFPB.  In short, the CFPB’s mission has turned inward—instead of policing the markets, it’s policing itself and the regulatory state, and with about the same degree of fervor.

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Life in the Silo

By Rick Jones on Posted in Commercial Mortgage Finance, Securitization, Seminars and Conferences

We at Dechert had our annual business meeting last week in Miami (tough duty).  Nestled in the general atmospherics of bon ami and collegiality were sessions on collaboration and connectivity amongst the lawyers in our firm.  Apparently the data suggested that law firms make more money when the partners of the firm work together.  Flash.  The mathematical proof of the blindingly obvious perhaps, but just in case, we were stentoriously and with great seriousness told that these conclusions were based on rigorous and exhaustive academic research; research undoubtedly paid for by the American taxpayer, along with other studies of similar compelling import such as why Americans don’t like lice.

But the point here is (and I’m not for an instant suggesting that making money is not a valid point) that collaboration is now essential to getting anything done right because we have all become so damn specialized.

All professionals and business folks, including those of us in Big Law, are under enormous pressure to be intensely specialized yet issues are never so neatly defined by those specializations which all too often also mark the boundaries of our intellectual domains. Continue Reading

I Hear This Cries Out for Regulation!

By Rick Jones on Posted in Financial Reform, Regulatory, Regulatory Complexity

As we all marinate in the difficulties of Mr. Zuckerberg, who, at the end of the day, can certainly salve any wounds with a net worth measured in the tens of billions of dollars, I was struck by the continued drumbeat for “REGULATION.”  Now, perhaps I am ill equipped to discuss Facebook, not being a participant and therefore never having clicked through a lengthy agreement on privacy (or the lack thereof), but I have some thoughts.  I’ll largely leave the ethics of the privacy contretemps to others, but I was struck by the parallels between the current kerfuffle over Facebook and privacy and the Dodd-Frank mess, lo these ten years past.

Let’s start with this dictum:  Beware the politician bearing new and comprehensive regulatory gifts for the American people. Continue Reading

Morningstar Requests Comments on Proposed Rating Methodology for SASB Deals

By Caroline Bell and Justin J. Gdula on Posted in CMBS, Commercial Mortgage Finance, Commercial Real Estate, Securitization

Morningstar has published a proposed method for rating single-asset/single-borrower (SASB) transactions. The new approach is slated to replace the “U.S. CMBS Subordination Model” with respect to SASBs and other forms of CMBS securities with similar credit and diversity profiles, including large-loan transactions and rake certificates. Morningstar has issued a request for comments on the proposal. We plan to provide our thoughts, described below, before the April 20th deadline, and encourage you to do the same. But first, answers to what are sure to be your most burning questions:

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The Day I (Almost) Met Mark Zuckerberg

By Krystyna Blakeslee and Gina Leahey on Posted in Commercial Real Estate, HVCRE

It’s day 2 of Mark Zuckerberg’s Congressional debut and I still have yet to catch a glimpse of him or his entourage. But – I have had the opportunity, with some fellow industry players, CREFC staff and members of the CREFC-HVCRE Working Group, to meet and speak with members of the House Financial Services Committee (Andy Barr and Trey Hollingsworth), Senate Banking Committee staff and regulators from the FDIC, OCC and the Fed. The topic on hand: not Facebook or Russia, but HVCRE and HVADC. Continue Reading

More Fun with LIBOR

By Rick Jones and Jonathan Gaynor on Posted in Financial Reform, Regulatory

Geeking out, I just finished reading the second report from the Alternate Reference Rates Committee that was just published jointly by the Financial Stability Board (FSB) and the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) in cooperation with the Alternate Reference Rates Committee (ARRC).  Does that scream bureaucracy in full, or what?  The report runs 40 pages, awkwardly pats itself on the back (with a net back-patting surplus allocated amongst the Federal Reserve, the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the U.S. Commodities Future Trading Commission and the Office of Financial Research) for confirming that we need a LIBOR replacement and the Secured Overnight Funding Rate (SOFR) is way better than the Effective Federal Funds Rate (EFFR) or the Overnight Bank Funding Rate (OBFR).  Ergo SOFR is the ARRC’s preferred alternate rate upon the expiry of the spavined LIBOR. Continue Reading

Dechert’s Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Tracker: The Times They Are A-(Block)cha(i)ngin’

By Jonathan Gaynor and Krisia Ildefonso on Posted in Uncategorized

Come gather ‘round people wherever you roam because, with apologies to Bob Dylan, in the past year the blockchain and cryptocurrency waters have grown.   In less than a year these topics went from obscure lore to a multibillion dollar question on most everyone’s mind. From tokenized securities to decentralized ledgers to smart contracts, blockchain technology will fundamentally change the landscape of financial services and real estate as we know it – and fast! In one minute, an initial coin offering (ICO) raised $36 million for a new venture. In one day, cryptocurrency markets can experience Great Recession-level gains and losses. And in the time it took you to read this, a techie in Silicon Valley probably developed another application of blockchain technology to transform an entire industry.

If your time to you is worth saving’ then you better start swimmin’ and we at Dechert are here to help. In order to keep you up to blockchain speed, we at Dechert are excited to provide the Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Tracker, where we cover all of the latest developments in the cryptocurrency and blockchain spaces, including regulatory status updates, tax implications, the use of real estate tokens and ICOs and more.

So if you don’t want to sink like a stone, subscribe to receive email alerts or visit the Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Tracker for more tales from the crypt(o) (and other mediocre puns). And if you want to talk about all of this, please reach out to Rick Jones, Bruce Bloomingdale or Tim Spangler for more information about how blockchain technology continues to affect finance, real estate and securitization matters.

The Urge to Merge

By Rick Jones and Jonathan Gaynor on Posted in Commercial Mortgage Finance, Liquidity

Will 2018 be the Year of Concentration across our market?  “The Urge to Merge” was the title of a January 2, 2007 Economist article.  It resonates today.  The cover photo was two camels copulating, which some of the Economist readers, surely a high-brow and sensitive bunch, apparently found offensive, as the picture is nowhere to be found on the internet.  They would not allow me to republish the pic.  A priggish fastidiousness that does not reflect well.

Seriously, 2018 could be the year of significant concentration across much of the CRE non-bank space, and perhaps some portions of the prudentially regulated bank space as well.  Continue Reading

No “Fake News” Here – Just the Facts on HVCRE

By Krystyna Blakeslee and Gina Leahey on Posted in HVCRE

In case you’ve been too busy sifting through fake news to follow efforts to reform the High Volatility Commercial Real Estate (HVCRE) regulations that affect acquisition, development or construction (ADC) loans, here’s where we are and where we think we are going. Continue Reading

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