In Short -
The Situation: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC" or "Commission") has reopened the comment period for its January 2022 proposal to amend Exchange Act Rule 3b-16 to broadly expand the...more
In Short -
The Situation: Regulatory "sandboxes" are trending. They represent a unique approach to regulation that permits selected companies to test and experiment with new and innovative products and services....more
The IRS recently clarified its position on the U.S. income tax treatment of a hard fork. A hard fork occurs when protocols on a blockchain change, causing a "fork" or splintering of the existing blockchain into two distinct...more
The Situation: The requirement for a paper-based note for issuing securities under the German law has been an obstacle for the use of security tokens in Germany. With the release of a draft bill (the "Bill") permitting the...more
The Situation: As the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") continues to bring enforcement actions to stop unregistered sales of digital tokens, blockchain companies are exploring ways to sell tokens to the public...more
The Situation: In a recently released joint statement ("Statement"), the Staffs of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's ("SEC") Division of Trading and Markets, and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority...more
8/5/2019
/ Blockchain ,
Broker-Dealer ,
Customer Protection Rule ,
Digital Assets ,
Digital Securities ,
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) ,
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) ,
Investor Protection ,
Joint Policy Statements ,
Rule 15c3-3 ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
SIPA
The Situation: The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network ("FinCEN") released interpretive guidance concerning the application of the Bank Secrecy Act ("BSA") and the anti-money laundering ("AML") regulations to certain...more
6/21/2019
/ Anti-Money Laundering ,
Bank Secrecy Act ,
Blockchain ,
Civil Monetary Penalty ,
Convertible Virtual Currencies (CVCs) ,
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
FinCEN ,
Initial Coin Offering (ICOs) ,
Money Services Business ,
p2p ,
Peer-to-Peer ,
Regulatory Requirements ,
Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) ,
Virtual Currency
The Situation: For the first time, the New York State Department of Financial Services ("NYDFS") publicly announced that it had denied a cryptocurrency exchange's applications for virtual currency and money transmission...more
4/25/2019
/ Anti-Money Laundering ,
BitLicense ,
Blockchain ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) ,
Financial Institutions ,
Money Transmitter ,
NYDFS ,
Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) ,
Token Sales ,
Virtual Currency
In the sixth in a series of 12 Jones Day Presents: Blockchain videos, partner Mark Rasmussen discusses smart contracts, which execute automatically upon the occurrence of an event, and describes the use of the technology in...more
Do you have questions about blockchain technology? Watch "What is Blockchain and How is it Used?," the first in a series of 12 short Jones Day Presents: Blockchain videos. In this program, Jones Day partner Mark Rasmussen...more
Blockchain technology, particularly private blockchains, can provide a technological curtain behind which business transactions occur. Still, any anticompetitive practices that stem from private blockchains are subject to...more
8/3/2018
/ Anticompetitive Agreements ,
Antitrust Division ,
Blockchain ,
Competition ,
Competition Authorities ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Monopolization ,
OECD ,
Regulatory Oversight ,
Sherman Act ,
Trading Platforms ,
Transparency
The Situation: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has launched a special unit to bring enforcement actions against several forms of cyber misconduct.
The Result: The Cyber Unit has already brought enforcement...more
12/20/2017
/ Blockchain ,
Digital Currency ,
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Ethereum ,
Initial Coin Offering (ICOs) ,
Popular ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Violations ,
Token Sales ,
Unregistered Securities ,
Virtual Currency
As the interest in blockchain technology grows, companies will be confronted with numerous decisions, challenges, and legal issues pertaining to its adoption. Relevant matters include the overall design and control of...more
9/6/2017
/ Australia ,
Blockchain ,
China ,
Cybersecurity ,
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) ,
Financial Institutions ,
Foreign Jurisdictions ,
France ,
Germany ,
Hong Kong ,
Japan ,
Patents ,
Popular ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Singapore ,
Smart Contracts ,
Supply Chain ,
UK