by Arthur Long and Jeffrey Steiner
On October 15, 2021, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued an enforcement order (Tether Order) against the issuers of the U.S. dollar Tether token (USDT), a leading stablecoin, and fined those issuers $41 million for making untrue or misleading statements about maintaining sufficient fiat currency reserves to back each USDT “one-to-one.”[1] In so doing, the CFTC asserted that USDT is a “commodity” under the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA).
by Joel M. Cohen, Jeffrey L. Steiner, Patrick F. Stokes, Lawrence J. Zweifach, Emily A. Cross, and Darcy C. Harris
On December 3, 2020, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC” or the “Commission”) Division of Enforcement (the “Division”) announced a settlement with Vitol Inc. (“Vitol”), an energy and commodities trading firm in Houston, Texas. This is the first public action coming out of the CFTC’s initiative to pursue violations of the Commodity Exchange Act (“CEA”) involving foreign corruption. The CFTC’s action rests on an aggressive theory that seeks to approach allegations of corruption through its historic ability to pursue fraud and manipulation, which has not yet faced a serious legal challenge. Continue reading
by Arthur S. Long, Carl E. Kennedy, and Jeffrey L. Steiner
This post reviews the New York State Office of the Attorney General’s (the “OAG”) Virtual Markets Integrity Initiative Report (the “Report”), which was published on September 18, 2018.[1] The publication of the OAG’s 42-page Report brings to a close its six-month fact-finding inquiry of several virtual currency platforms.[2] The OAG sent out detailed letters and questionnaires to a number of virtual currency platforms seeking information from the platforms across a wide-range of issues, including trading operations, fees charged to customers, the existence of robust policies and procedures, and the use of risk controls. Continue reading