Tag Archives: SEC

2022 Golden Turkeys

It’s Golden Turkey Awards Time, Folks! Our Turkeys are a little late this year but hey, we’ve been busy worrying about the collapse of the world’s economy.  This is the 10th edition of our Turkeys and much thanks to our disorderly, often dysfunctional, regularly inscrutable and absurd government, polity and marketplace for continuing to provide … Continue Reading

Life (and Opportunity) in the Time of Considerable Government Malfeasance

I wrote a week or two back about my expectation that significant economic dislocation awaits us.  I still think that.  The morning after I published, hordes (ok, maybe not hordes) of PhD Villeins were outside my house with pitchforks and burning torches, loudly asserting that I had wildly overstated the likelihood of material distress in … Continue Reading

The Coming Regulatory Deluge (With Apologies to Louis XV):  Smells Like Opportunity to Me

Events keep happening that really do make it clear that we are about to enter a period of enhanced regulatory intrusion into the financial services space.  Shocking!  And entirely unexpected, right?  (You’re winning, sir)  While that is in many respects troubling, it’s also the stuff of opportunity for the creative and nimble.  I’ll explain.… Continue Reading

Dechert OnPoint: SEC Publishes OCIE Risk Alert on LIBOR Transition Preparedness Examination Initiative

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 … Continue Reading

CECL: The Ugly Pig Running Out of Lipstick

Here is something helpful that has surfaced amidst the fallout, pain and confusion of the global COVID-19 crisis.  The implementation date for the all-too-simple in theory but not-simple-at-all in practice CECL accounting standard has been pushed back by the passage of the CARES Act for banks until the COVID-19 national emergency declared by the president … Continue Reading

Ratings Agencies in the Crosshairs

Back in the febrile, hyperventilated times that birthed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (blessedly known simply as Dodd-Frank), one of the issues that energized the activists’ intent on “fixing” what was wrong was the notion that the ratings agencies were complicit in the overpricing of financial assets.  In a “want for … Continue Reading

Third Party Purchaser Agreements Don’t Destroy Sale Treatment: A Victory for the Unintended Consequences Resistance

Every once in a while we get some good news around the capital markets hood and this is one of those times.  Admittedly, all we’re doing here is fixing a problem which was one of the unintended consequences of the Dodd-Frank regulatory regime and just gets us back to where we thought we were before … Continue Reading

Fun With GAAP:  CMBS at Risk

Here’s a headline for you:  We don’t know if a conventional CMBS securitization where risk retention bonds are retained by a B-buyer under an industry standard third party purchaser agreement achieves accounting sale treatment.  Failure of accounting sale treatment means the selling bank cannot book the gain and does not derecognize the underlying loans resulting … Continue Reading

Why Regulation Fails

I’d like everyone to go out and buy a copy of Professor Paul Mahoney’s slender new book, Wasting a Crisis – Why Securities Regulation Fails.  Paul is a brilliant guy.  Until this spring, he was the dean of the University of Virginia School of Law where he is the David and Mary Harrison Distinguished Professor … Continue Reading

A Trip Through the Labyrinth – The Regulatory Man in Full

And now to return to our commentary a few weeks back about the stultifying impact of ill-thought through rules and regulations (at best) (Brexit has intervened).  This is our Regulatory State which broadly attempted to pick winners and losers and modify market behavior, to get an engineered outcome by using the blunderbuss of proscriptive rules … Continue Reading

Risk Retention: It’s the Fourth Quarter and the Home Team is Getting Glum

We thought it would be useful to give a quick, interim update on the slow-motion train wreck that is our industry’s response to the upcoming effectiveness of the Risk Retention Rule.  For those of you who have been blessedly snoozing under a rock these past couple of years, the Risk Retention Rule becomes effective on … Continue Reading

Crowdfunding: The Next Commercial Real Estate Frontier?

In a world where we buy groceries, book travel, and even date online, it should come as no surprise that online investment is becoming increasingly prevalent. The rapid shift towards an internet-centric world has made crowdfunding the next “big thing” when it comes to raising capital and finding investment opportunities. What is Crowdfunding? In the … Continue Reading

Dechert OnPoint Details Recent SEC Report on Credit Ratings for Structured Finance Products

While we’re on the topic of Dodd-Frank rules and regs that could have a significant impact on the securitization market, the SEC recently reported the findings of a study it conducted regarding assigned credit ratings for structured finance products – a report required under Section 939F of the Dodd-Frank Act that will subsequently lead to … Continue Reading

ASF 2013 (“Viva Las Vegas”)

Dechert’s securitization team is looking forward to the American Securitization Forum 2013 (“ASF 2013”) conference starting this Sunday, as it is expected to be once again the largest capital markets conference in the world. ASF 2013 is expecting over 4,500 participants who will all convene at the Aria Hotel and Convention Center in fabulous Las … Continue Reading

The Regs that Bind

In the world of magical realism which produced that paragon of legislative genius known as Dodd-Frank, I have had energy for only a bit of remote intellectual annoyance over the impact of the part of the Rule commonly known as “Volcker”.… Continue Reading

Qualified Mortgage Rule Emerges as Critical Issue in Restructuring of Residential Mortgage Market Regulation

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (the “CFPB”) is currently charged with defining a “Qualified Mortgage” (a “QM”). The federal banking agencies, the SEC, the FHFA and the Department of HUD are jointly charged with defining a “Qualified Residential Mortgage” (a “QRM”), and the QRM definition cannot be any broader than the QM definition. A narrowly … Continue Reading

The FinReg Sheriff Arrives in Town: Do You Feel Safer?

On January 20th, the SEC finalized its first batch of many rules to come under Dodd-Frank, requiring issuers to perform reviews of the assets underlying their ABS securities and requiring them to disclose fulfilled and unfulfilled repurchase requests for alleged breaches of representations and warranties.  These have effective dates beginning with 2012 issuance so, to a certain extent, we can kick the anxiety … Continue Reading

FDIC: Mining a Safe Harbor

Last week the FDIC approved its final Safe Harbor Rule regarding securitization. That something that sounds so good could be so bad leaves you thinking: can’t we catch a break in trying to repair this damaged economy? To set the stage a bit, the FDIC has a suite of powers, while acting as conservator or … Continue Reading

And Now the Real Game Begins

It’s August 6 as I write this, and the finance industry is taking a deep breath after hustling for weeks to get their comments delivered to the SEC on the SEC’s massive restructuring (pdf) of Reg AB and offering reform.  We here at Dechert had been very busy writing the CREFC comments (pdf) and I’m delighted to … Continue Reading
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