A Focus on Residential Real Estate and Money Laundering

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network announced the issuance of revised Geographic Targeting Orders. The threshold for reporting has been reduced down to $300,000 for all-cash purchases of residential real estate. The geographic scope has been expanded to now include nine cities: Boston; Chicago; Dallas-Fort Worth; Honolulu; Las Vegas; Los Angeles; Miami; New York City; San Antonio; … Read more »

Exam Initiatives Focused on Registered Investment Companies

The SEC’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations has issued a risk alert announcing its intention to conduct a series of examination initiatives focused on issues affecting certain registered investment companies and investment advisers. According to the Risk Alert, examiners have six initiatives: Index funds that track custom-built indexes Smaller ETFs and/or ETFs with little secondary … Read more »

Excelsior!

Stan Lee, the legendary writer and publisher of Marvel comics who helped created countless superheroes, has died. He was 95. On his own and through his work with collaborators Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Bill Everett. and others, Mr. Lee created Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Mighty Thor, Black Panther, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk, … Read more »

Cryptocurrency Problems Roundup

Crypto Currency can be a Commodity A federal judge in Massachusetts agreed with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s view that virtual currencies are commodities under the Commodity Exchange Act and subject to federal regulation. See CFTC v. My Big Coin Pay, Inc., (D. Mass. Sept. 26, 2018). The CFTC sued a virtual currency company and several … Read more »

Go Vote

It’s election day. Make sure you vote today. Only 42% of registered Americans came out to vote in the 2014 midterms. The numbers get even worse when you look at millennials, only about 20% of millennials showed up in the last two midterm elections. Add in the vast number of unregistered voters and you have a lot of government … Read more »