News Centre

Statement On Procedural Requirements And Resubmission Thresholds Under Exchange Act Rule 14a-8, SEC Commissioner Elad L. Roisman, Sept. 23, 2020

Date 23/09/2020

Change is difficult.  Especially when something has been a certain way for as long as you can remember.  Twenty-two years have passed since the Commission last updated Rule 14a-8.  In particular, the submission threshold was last substantively reviewed and amended in 1998, and the resubmission thresholds have not been updated since 1954.  Yet, over the last several decades, not only has the composition of public company ownership changed drastically, but the ways in which shareholders communicate with companies, and with each other, have evolved with the times as well.  I believe that the only constant in our markets is the fact that they will change.  It is a regulator’s job to adjust rules to respond to, if not to anticipate, such dynamics.  It is our responsibility to adjust these rules to reflect our current markets, and the time is now. 

ESMA Receives Securitisation Repository Registration Application

Date 23/09/2020

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU’s securities markets regulator, has received its first application for registration as a securitisation repository (SR) under the Securitisation Regulation.

Modernizing The Shareholder Proposal Framework For The Benefit Of All Shareholders, SEC Chairman Jay Clayton, Sept. 23, 2020

Date 23/09/2020

Over the past three years, we have engaged in a number of retrospective reviews of the rules that implement our securities law framework.  These reviews often, but not always, have yielded the unassailable conclusion that modernization is necessary and appropriate.  This should come as no surprise given how much has changed in the past 20, 30, 40 or more years since key rules were last comprehensively reviewed.  At a macro level, I note that interaction among market participants, including trading, disclosures and other information-based interactions, is now largely electronic, adding tremendous efficiencies but also new challenges.  Virtually all trading in equities is electronic.  The days of disclosure reports and proxy materials being filed in paper form, but not electronic form, with the Commission are well behind us.  In addition, as I have noted at other recent open Commission meetings, our Main Street investors generally have shifted from investing directly in our public companies to investing through mutual funds and ETFs.[1]  For many small and medium-sized companies, our private capital markets are the only reasonable means for obtaining financing to grow their businesses.  As I often say, the core principles are the same as they were in the 1930s, but the landscape is far different.

Bitfinex Terminal Powers Data-Driven Algo Trading Strategies With Dazaar

Date 23/09/2020

Bitfinex, a state-of-the-art digital asset trading platform, has launched Bitfinex Terminal, a real-time market data feed to power algorithmic trading, available via Dazaar. 

SEC Adds Clarity, Efficiency And Transparency To Its Successful Whistleblower Award Program

Date 23/09/2020

The Securities and Exchange Commission today voted to adopt amendments to the rules governing its whistleblower program that are designed to provide greater clarity to whistleblowers and increase the program’s efficiency and transparency.  Concurrently, to provide additional efficiencies, as well as clarity and transparency in the award determination process, the SEC’s Office of the Whistleblower published guidance regarding the process for determining award amounts for eligible whistleblowers.   

BIS - Competitive Effects Of IPOs: Evidence From Chinese Listing Suspensions

Date 23/09/2020

Summary

Focus

We look at periods where all initial public offerings (IPOs) were suspended in China in order to assess the effect of IPOs on stock markets and individual listed firms.   

Statement On The Commission’s New And Improved Whistleblower Program Rules, SEC Commissioner Elad L. Roisman, Sept. 23, 2020

Date 23/09/2020

Good morning.  I am happy to vote in favor of the staff’s recommendation to update the rules governing our whistleblower program.

The Chairman has already thanked everyone individually, but I would like to add my thanks to the staff in the Office of the General Counsel, the Division of Enforcement—particularly the Office of the Whistleblower (“OWB”)—and the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis for this fine work. 

Three Quarters Of UK SMEs Think Innovation Is Important For Recovery From COVID-19, But Just 15% Think The Government Encourages Innovation, Research From GovGrant Reveals

Date 23/09/2020

• 85% of UK SMEs consider innovation an important part of Covid-19 recovery, yet less than a fifth (15%) strongly agree the Government is doing enough to support it
• Nearly a quarter (22%) of respondents have never claimed R&D tax credits, despite being aware they exist
• One fifth of SMEs said they had no strategy in place to track their IP

Statement Of SEC Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw On Whistleblower Program Rule Amendments

Date 23/09/2020

The remarkable Justice Ginsburg once wrote that the Commission possessed a “robust whistleblower program designed to motivate people who know of securities law violations to tell the SEC”. Our nation has a long history of motivating whistleblowers to come forward, dating all the way back to 1777, when the Continental Congress passed our first whistleblower protection law. And over time our laws have evolved to not just protect whistleblowers, but also to incentivize and encourage them to take personal and professional risks to help our government stop wrongdoing.

Cappitech: Implications Of Deutsche Borse Withdrawing From Regulatory Reporting Market

Date 23/09/2020

The regulatory reporting industry is constantly experiencing change. In 2020, this has included the start of new regulations (SFTR), Brexit implications and market end-point consolidation. In March, CME announced it would no longer be offering ARM, APA & Trade Repository services in Europe and Asia and now it has been confirmed that Deutsche Borse is withdrawing from the market through the sale of RRH to MarketAxess Trax which is already an end point for ARM and APA reporting. This has reduced the number of market players, with the inevitable effect of reduced competition in the short to medium term.