Tag Archives: SEC

Cryptocurrency

Blog: Crypto Kleptocracy and the Scammers Paradise

Cryptocurrency promises a high-tech opportunity to make buckets of money, but like most get-rich-quick schemes, rip-offs are ubiquitous. The crypto industry is rife with scams, hustles akin to stock swindles, cyberbreaches, and other crimes that can easily separate investors and consumers from their money.

News Release: Public Interest Groups Defend SEC’s Climate Risk Disclosure Rule

Today, a coalition of public interest organizations filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eight Circuit defending the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against challenges to its final rule requiring public companies to disclose climate-related risks to their businesses and plans to manage or mitigate them. The SEC rule aligns with the growing consensus among investors and financial regulators in the U.S. and around the world that climate change poses significant risks to financial systems, and that securities regulators have an important role to play in mitigating those risks.

News Release: Crypto Industry Pressure Fails to Secure Veto Override on Harmful Deregulatory Resolution

The cryptocurrency industry’s lobbying efforts and hundreds of millions in campaign spending failed to generate enough congressional support to override President Biden’s veto of the Republican House’s effort to roll back Securities and Exchange Commission guidance designed to reduce the risks crypto assets can pose to investors and the market. Consumer protection advocates welcomed the vote as a good outcome for investor protection.

Letters to Congress: Support the Nomination of Caroline A. Crenshaw to Serve as a Commissioner of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

AFR and coalition members signed onto a letter urging the Senate to support the nomination of Caroline A. Crenshaw to Serve as a Commissioner of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for another term. Commissioner Crenshaw was unanimously confirmed in 2020 and her distinguished service at the SEC fully justified this Senate support. Crenshaw has worked tirelessly and skillfully with all stakeholders to advance the mission of the SEC.

News Release: Supreme Court’s Ruling Against In-House Judicial Experts Threatens Enforcement

Today’s ruling by the Supreme Court curbing the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) ability to hear complicated cases in front of expert administrative judges will drive litigation into the federal courts where companies and lobbyists will be able to, as they increasingly do, shop around for a pro-industry judge. Today’s 6-3 Supreme Court ruling in SEC v. Jarkesy now gives businesses and wrongdoers more Constitutional rights than most consumers and employees in America and sets a bad precedent by chipping away at an agency’s ability to meaningfully hold corporations accountable.

News Release: Fifth Circuit’s Wall Street-Friendly Ruling A Broad Threat to SEC Disclosure Rules

By staying the private fund disclosure rule written by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Fifth Circuit has given a victory to extraordinarily wealthy predatory financiers and opened the door to undermining the agency’s basic regulatory tools. Stopping the SEC’s private funds rule, which would increase transparency and accountability in the multi-trillion-dollar private funds market, is a terrible outcome in and of itself. But the impacts of this ruling go much further.

In The News: Court Loss Leaves SEC With Tough Choices in Private-Equity Reform Push (WSJ)

“The Fifth Circuit has once again sided with Wall Street and its private-equity billionaires to block reasonable protections for both the public interest and workers saving for retirement,” said Andrew Park, a senior policy analyst at Americans for Financial Reform, which advocates for tighter controls in the financial sector. “The Supreme Court needs to reverse this outrageous decision.”

SEC Building

Letter to the Regulators: Letter to the SEC on Finalizing the ESG Funds Disclosures Rule to Protect Investors from Greenwashing and Other Misleading Claims

AFREF and 18 additional signatories wrote to the SEC in support of bringing much-needed disclosures to the vast market of ESG-designated products and services. The letter urges the SEC to finalize the rule titled “Enhanced Disclosures by Certain Investment Advisers and Investment Companies about Environmental, Social, and Governance Investment Practices” as soon as possible and recommends changes to the way the proposed rule addresses disclosure of metrics by ESG-Focused Funds. These changes would improve the rule by generating disclosures that better reflect ESG-Focused Funds’ varied strategies and priority metrics while alleviating concerns expressed by some commenters.

SEC Building

Letters to the Regulators: Letter Urging The SEC to Repropose the Stock Buybacks Disclosure Rule

Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund (AFREF) led a letter with 13 additional signatories urging the SEC to repropose the stock buybacks disclosure rule to provide investors with information about this widespread yet opaque practice. This important rule was struck down by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals following a challenge by the Chamber of Commerce.