2020

After much anticipation and expectation, on June 25, 2020, the Federal Reserve Board, CFTC, FDIC, OCC, and SEC (the “agencies”) finalized an amendment to Section 13 of the Bank Holding Company Act, commonly known as the Volcker Rule, which among other things prohibits banking entities from sponsoring or acquiring ownership interests in “covered funds.”  Covered funds are entities that would be investment companies but for exemptions provided under Sections 3(c)(1) or 3(c)(7) of the Investment Company Act, and generally include private equity funds and hedge funds.  The final rule, which goes into effect on October 1, mostly follows what the agencies had signaled to everyone back in the mask and quarantine-free days of January when it released proposed changes that are largely adopted in the final rule.
Continue Reading Volcker Rule Amendment: Trending Towards Flexibility

Regulators have been increasing their scrutiny of LIBOR transition efforts as they ramp up messaging stressing that the time to act is now.   The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE) issued a National Exam Program Risk Alert to introduce a LIBOR Examination Initiative on the upcoming discontinuation of, and transition…

Everyone, including the least empathic in our society (aka, lawyers), knows that we should seek to uphold the golden rule and “do unto others…” with respect to family, friends, and acquaintances, but does this also apply in the corporate world?  Apparently so, as a Delaware bankruptcy court just ruled that preferred shareholders with a bankruptcy-filing…

The closing deadline is quickly approaching!  Which of the following two processes would you choose?  Would you:

(a) create a pdf of signature pages and request that parties provide a digital signature and return via email, or

(b) print out multiple sets of paper copies of each signature page for each transaction document in triplicate, then… ship each signature page packet to each signatory for the transaction (sending in tandem, an email with the overnight delivery tracking numbers) with a pre-addressed and prepaid return envelope and instructions to sign and return on a very tight timeline with no room for error, then…wait by the mailroom for those signature pages to come back.Continue Reading Original[s] Sin

I had the opportunity to interview Sam Zell last week on an iGlobal podcast. You can see it here. Fascinating.  Okay, Mr. Zell might not be the undisputed master of 1.4 billion souls whose thoughts are obligatory reading, but his Thoughts should be accorded considerable weight by us denizens of the US economy.  There’s a real difference between those who bloviate for a living (which would include me) and those who actually deploy capital based on their views and analysis of markets.  I’ll pay considerably more attention to the latter.
Continue Reading The Thoughts of (Chairman) Zell

One of the pleasures of life is re-encountering old friends, catching up on what’s happened while your lives have gone their separate ways, reminiscing about the good old days and reconnecting.  It comes back so fast, it’s like you never were apart.

Me and the Liquidating Trust had just such an experience the other day.Continue Reading A Walk Down Memory Lane with the Liquidating Trust

While it seems like the COVID pandemic has taken over every waking moment of our lives, the impending end of LIBOR marches ever onward.  All signs point to a termination date for the troubled benchmarks at the end of 2021, pandemic be damned.

The purpose of this post is not to discuss the road to transition so far, though if you’d like to take a trip down memory lane, here is what we have seen. Instead, we wanted to bring your attention to the fact that, whilst the UK Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) momentum continues, COVID has created some bumps in the road, even on the journey to the end of LIBOR.Continue Reading LIBOR – The UK Beat Goes On

Last Friday, Law360 published its interview with Crunched Credit’s own Rick Jones as part of its Coronavirus Q&A series. In his interview, Rick discusses the effects COVID-19 has had on the commercial mortgage-backed securities market, reflects on how the current financial climate compares to that of the Great Recession, and contemplates the future of capital…