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Jan. 19 (Bloomberg Law) — Rori Cassirer, managing partner for Troutman Sanders’ New York office, talks with Bloomberg Law’s Lee Pacchia about President Obama’s recess appointment of Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, how the agency will operate in an election year and whether the appointment will face legal challenges from business groups or politicians opposed to the nomination.

Recently introduced bipartisan House legislation proposes to codify an end-user exemption from the Dodd-Frank Act’s margin requirements. If enacted, the Business Risk Mitigation and Price Stabilization Act of 2011 (H.R. 2682) would clarify that non-cleared over-the-counter (OTC) end-user swap transactions are exempt from initial and variation margin requirements imposed by swap dealers and major swap participants.  [Read more →]

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission recently issued a final order clarifying which OTC derivatives rules under Dodd-Frank will take effect on their scheduled implementation date of July 16, 2011. The CFTC’s order also proposed temporary exemptions from many Dodd-Frank swaps requirements and delayed the implementation of various self-executing swaps rules. [Read more →]

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation announced during its January 18, 2011 board meeting that the federal banking agencies were “very close” to jointly proposing rules to implement the incentive compensation reporting system and prohibitions required by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the Dodd-Frank Act). Section 956 of the Dodd-Frank Act requires the federal banking agencies to adopt incentive compensation rules that will: (1) implement a reporting system through which financial institutions report the structures of their incentive-based compensation arrangements to the appropriate federal regulator; and (2) prohibit incentive compensation structures or payments that encourage inappropriate risks (i) by providing excessive compensation to an executive officer, director, employee or principal shareholder of a financial institution, or (ii) that could lead to material financial loss by a financial institution. [Read more →]

In 2009, SEC enforcement actions reached an all-time high, doubling the number of formal investigations that took place in 2008.  This rising tide of enforcement will undoubtedly grow larger given the newly-enacted Dodd-Frank Act’s whistleblower provisions, which provide significant monetary incentives to individuals willing to reveal certain types of financial misconduct.  With this onslaught in mind, companies and individuals working in SEC regulated industries must clearly understand what behavior can place them in the government’s crosshairs. [Read more →]