Daniel M. Hawke is a partner at Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP. This post is based on his Arnold & Porter memorandum.
Since January 2017, the SEC has quietly racked up at least half a dozen major enforcement actions charging a wide range of equity market structure violations. In these cases, dark pools, exchanges and broker-dealers have collectively paid more than $100 million in civil penalties and several of them have involved admissions of liability. Although the Division of Enforcement issued press releases announcing each of the cases, it has been notably restrained in promoting its concentrated efforts in this area, as evidenced by the absence of any mention of market structure enforcement activity in its recently issued 2018 Annual Report. Nevertheless, the number of cases and size of penalties in these actions make clear that market structure enforcement remains a top priority for the Commission and the Enforcement Division’s Market Abuse Unit (MAU). The consequence of this low-key but robust enforcement approach is that market structure enforcement continues to be a high-risk compliance area for market participants with large dollar consequences for would-be violators.
Competition and Consumer Protection in the 21st Century
More from: Barbara Novick, Bennett Golub, BlackRock
Barbara Novick is Vice Chairman and Bennett Golub is Chief Risk Officer at BlackRock, Inc. This post is based on BlackRock’s letter to the FTC challenging the theory of common ownership.
BlackRock, Inc. (“BlackRock”) appreciates the opportunity to comment in connection with the eighth session of the Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC” or the “Commission”) hearings on Competition and Consumer Protection in the 21st Century. We welcome the FTC’s Hearings Initiative and efforts to evaluate the effectiveness of competition and consumer protection law, enforcement priorities, and public policy matters in the context of America’s diverse and evolving economy. As an asset manager that invests in thousands of American companies on behalf of our clients, our business benefits from competitive markets and industries. We commend the Commission for prioritizing information gathering and fact-finding to inform its policy efforts.
READ MORE »