Transaction Monitoring Under the FCPA
The global stock index provider Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI), one of the largest stock index providers in the world, announced recently that it opened a consultancy process with regard to Israel’s possible...more
Food and consumer products conglomerate Unilever’s making a big play for the Asian market with its $2.7 billion deal to buy Carver Korea, a South Korean-based skin care specialist....more
Big American banks (BofA, Citi, Morgan Stanley) are avoiding deals with Chinese conglomerate HNA Group over concerns regarding HNA’s debt level and ownership structure....more
A banner round of stress-testing for the US’s biggest banks (all passed for the first time in the test’s 7-year history) is seen as paving the way for banks to pay out their largest dividends in nearly a decade....more
The headline a few days ago was the arrest of VW exec Oliver Schmidt during an ill-advised trip to Miami last week. But the DOJ also indicted five other top executives over their role in VW’s emissions cheating scandal. No...more
As anticipated, the Fed raised its benchmark interest yesterday (for only the second time since the 2008 financial crisis) to somewhere between .5 and .75 percent and, perhaps more critically, revealed its expectation for...more
Faced with new Department of Labor rules requiring investment advisers to act in the best interest of their retirement account customers, Morgan Stanley’s decided to let its customers keeping paying for retirement advice with...more
Italy’s struggling lender Monte Dei Paschi is cutting jobs and closing branches in an effort to revive the world’s oldest bank (and maybe save Siena in the process)....more
The Journal gives us a closer look at Italy’s Monte dei Paschi—the world’s oldest bank (founded in 1472)—that’s deeply tied to Siena and that’s threatening to drag the whole of the region’s economy down with it if it fails,...more
Financial Industry Developments - CFTC Announces Measures to Enhance Protection of Customer Funds - On August 8, 2016, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced three separate enhancements...more
ValueAct Capital Mgmt, an activist investor, has taken a $1.1 billion stake in Morgan Stanley with 38 million shares that represent about 2% of shares outstanding. Unlike normal activists (at least for now), ValueAct took the...more
More thoughts on the Department of Labor’s new retirement adviser fiduciary duty standard, including questions about the “grassroots” movement the US Chamber of Commerce is claiming to support its opposition to the standard....more
In a gift to Wall Street today, Fed Chair Janet Yellen signaled that May’s weak job numbers were low enough to prompt reconsideration of a June rate hike out of fears of pushing a fragile economy too far too fast....more
Talk about a regulation with teeth. Within days of the Treasury Department announcing new rules meant to discourage corporate tax inversion deals, Pfizer and Allergan announced they were scrapping their planned $152 billion...more
Chair Yellen will report on the Fed’s latest meeting at 2pm EDT today. Thanks to the Journal, we’ve got 5 Things to Watch when she does – WSJ... All is not well at Valeant, the struggling drug maker whose stock dropped...more
Jobs report Friday again. Here are the 5 Things the Journal told you to watch – WSJ (and NYTimes)... The Upshot’s not saying that a 2016 recession is inevitable, but if it does happen, this may be the path that takes us...more
In what would be the largest acquisition of a foreign corporation ever, state-owned ChemChina is nearing a deal to purchase Switzerland’s Syngenta (besting US-based Monsanto’s overtures to do the same). The deal could help...more
Chinese economic data has already been wreaking havoc on markets in 2016. So I shudder to think about the impact of the recently announced investigation by China’s anticorruption commission into the head of the country’s...more
Goldman Sachs is ready to close a major lingering chapter of financial-crisis-era litigation, announcing yesterday that it’s agreed to a civil settlement of $5 billion to resolve claims related to its “marketing and selling...more
Likely prompted by its ongoing SIFI battle, MetLife is reportedly looking to spin off its retail life and annuity business and break up what’s now the largest life insurance company in the US, with $880 billion in assets –...more
China’s once again halted trading after the CSI 300 dropped 7% in early trading. Worries about China led to a rough day throughout Asian markets, likely setting the stage for another big drop on Wall Street ahead – WSJ and...more
An update on the Dow/DuPont merger (which is expected to be followed, in short order, by a three-way split into ag chemicals, specialty products, and materials companies) – NYTimes and WSJ...more
Yesterday the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced a resolution with Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (BNY Mellon) for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). This was the first enforcement...more
The Restructuring Mid-Summer Review: Europe and the Emerging Markets - For those focused on the debt restructuring market, the Greek sovereign crisis (covered extensively in our recent updates1) has drowned out news of...more
On July 14, 2015, Justice Friedman of the New York State Supreme Court for the County of New York granted in part Morgan Stanley & Co.’s motion to dismiss fraud claims brought by HSH Nordbank AG (“HSH”) and Carrera Capital...more