Cabinet News & Views

Welcome to the first issue of our new, reimagined Cabinet News and Views.

Cabinet News and Views will now be published weekly – on Thursdays – with a look back at the week’s news related to the financial markets … and ahead at what’s coming in the days and weeks to come. We promise to continue to provide the same level of sharp analysis and unsurpassed expertise that you have always received from Cadwalader attorneys – real-world explanations and commentary intended to help you think through and respond to important developments.

Issues of Cabinet News and Views will include a few standard features, including:

Take Five: a brief look at five topics that are on the minds of financial services industry participants
In Depth: a deeper dive into timely and important topics
Cadwalader Corner Q&A: interviews with industry leaders and other key influencers

We’d love to hear what you think of our inaugural issue of our new Cabinet News and Views and what we can do to make this most valuable to you. Please send your comments and suggestions here.

Happy reading!

Daniel Meade & Michael Sholem
Co-Editors, Cabinet News and Views

New Biden Executive Order on Digital Assets

By Christian Larson

Associate | White Collar Defense and Investigations

President Biden issued an executive order (“EO”) yesterday on “Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets.” The EO calls for an aligned, all-of-government approach to digital assets, which the EO defines to include, among other things, cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, central bank digital currencies, and other representations of value or financial instruments that may be a security, commodity, derivative, or other financial product.

By Daniel Meade

Partner | Financial Regulation

On March 8, the Federal Register published the Federal Reserve Board’s supplemental notice and request for comment on updates to its proposed guidelines for Federal Reserve Banks to utilize in evaluating requests for access to Reserve Bank master accounts and services. The supplemental notice includes a new section of the proposed Guidelines that would establish a three-tiered review framework on the level of scrutiny to be applied to requests for Reserve Bank accounts and services.

By Keith M. Gerver

Associate | White Collar Defense and Investigations

Last week, the U.S. Senate passed S. 3600, the Strengthening American Cybersecurity Act, which represents a significant step forward in the establishment of a national data breach notification law for certain critical infrastructure businesses and marks, for the first time, that businesses will be required to report when they have made ransomware payments.

EU AML List Will Add The Cayman Islands

By Michael Sholem

Partner | Financial Services

On February 21, 2022, Commission Delegated Regulation was published in the Official Journal of the European Union which will add the Cayman Islands to the list of countries that have been identified by the European Commission as having strategic anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing deficiencies.

By Lary Stromfeld

Partner | Financial Regulation

Federal legislation addressing the transition of legacy LIBOR contracts took a big step forward when it was included in the Omnibus bill passed late last night by the House of Representatives.

By James A. Treanor

Special Counsel | White Collar Defense and Investigations

It should come as no surprise that the crushing sanctions imposed on Russia in recent weeks will be met with efforts to evade their impact. From Russian firms starved for U.S. dollars to oligarchs starved for that new villa or yacht, some sanctions targets inevitably will attempt to access the capital, goods and services from which they have been severed so completely since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began. To do so, in most cases they will be forced to conceal their involvement in a transaction. Enter: crypto.

We spent some time with BNY Mellon's Jason Granet for a wide-ranging discussion on the current environment and the trends that BNY Mellon is most excited for in the future of capital markets.