Regulatory

Subscribe to Regulatory via RSS

On January 14, 2025, the first part of the Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC”) update to the Negative Option Rule went into effect. Negative options are contract terms that allow a seller to interpret a customer’s silence or failure to affirmatively cancel an agreement as a tacit acceptance of a renewal option—thereby creating automatically renewing contracts. While auto-renewing contracts are often intended to make subscriptions to goods and services easier and more efficient, the FTC’s stated position has been that consumers and other businesses can become “trapped” in contracts that they did not intend to renew and cannot easily cancel.Continue Reading An Offer You Can’t Refuse: The FTC’s New “Click-to-Cancel” Rule

Department of Treasury

On February 10, 2025, Rodney E. Hood, the former Chairman of the National Credit Union Administration (“NCUA”), assumed the role of First Deputy Comptroller at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (the “OCC”).  By operation of law, Mr. Hood thereby succeeded Michael J. Hsu as Acting Comptroller of the Currency under 12 U.S.C. § 4, which grants the First Deputy Comptroller the full authority of a Senate-confirmed Comptroller whenever the position is vacant.  Although President Trump nominated Jonathan Gould, a current partner at Jones Day and former chief legal officer at blockchain firm Bitfury, to serve as Comptroller, Mr. Hood now leads the OCC in an acting capacity.  Mr. Hood brings extensive experience to the role, having previously served on the NCUA Board of Directors, the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Stability Oversight Council and as Vice Chairman of the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council.Continue Reading Treasury Secretary Bessent Taps Rodney E. Hood to Lead the OCC

Effective January 1, 2021, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 (the “Act”) became law. Among other provisions, the Act contains the most significant changes to the Bank Secrecy Act (the “BSA”) since 2001. Most significantly, the Act requires the Department of the Treasury, through the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”), to adopt regulations within one year that will establish a framework by which smaller, closely held businesses, regardless of the type of enterprise (e.g., corporation, limited liability company or partnership) will be required to disclose their beneficial ownership to FinCEN.
Continue Reading BSA/AML Update: Significant New Requirements Ahead

Bank Vault

Markets like certainty.  On July 20, 2020, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (the “OCC”) proposed a new rule for national banks and federal savings associations that would solve the “true lender” question and help bring certainty to financial markets.  Under the proposed rule, a bank will be deemed the “true lender” in a bank partnership model if it is either (i) the named lender in the underlying loan agreement or (ii) the party that funds the loan.
Continue Reading OCC Proposal Would Bring Certainty to the Identity of the “True Lender”

CalculatorOn September 17, 2019, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (the “FDIC”) passed a final rule providing qualifying community banking organizations the ability to opt-in to a new community bank leverage ratio (“CBLR”) framework, which will greatly simplify regulatory determinations regarding capital adequacy and eliminate the need for qualifying community banking organizations to calculate and report…