The Revolving Door: Top Law Firm Snags Former SEC Deputy Director for BrokerDealer Practice Area

Posted on October 13, 2014 by admin

Brokerdealer.com blog update courtesy of TradersMagazine Oct 13 reporting.

Willkie Farr & Gallagher announced that James R. Burns, former deputy director of the SEC’s Trading & Markets Division announced will be joining the law firm and practice in Willkie’s Asset Management Group. He will be based in the Washington, D.C. office and his practice will focus on counseling investment managers and broker-dealers on all aspects of their business, including regulatory, compliance and enforcement matters.

Burns will join former Director of the SEC’s Division of Investment Management, Barry Barbash, Co-Chair of the Group.

“We are truly delighted that Jim has decided to join our team. He was recognized throughout his tenure at the SEC as a star member of the Commission’s staff and has deep experience and expertise that spans the trading and markets and asset management areas. He will be a great resource for our clients and for the Group,” said Barbash.

While at the SEC, Burns most recently had oversight responsibility for core regulatory functions within the Division of Trading and Markets, including market supervision, analytics and research, derivatives policy and trading practices, and the chief counsel and enforcement liaison offices. In particular, he oversaw key initiatives including the adoption of the Volcker Rule and rules to implement the derivatives reform provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. During his tenure, he also coordinated the division’s response to significant market events, its participation in international regulatory initiatives, and its development and implementation of new analytical tools for market oversight.

Prior to joining the Division, Burns served under Chairman Mary L. Schapiro as the agency’s Deputy Chief of Staff, where he advised on the development and execution of the SEC’s broader rulemaking and policy agenda. He joined Chairman Schapiro’s staff as counsel in 2010, having first come to the SEC as counsel to Commissioner Kathleen Casey in 2008. In these prior SEC staff capacities, he worked chiefly on investment management and trading and markets matters arising from the financial crisis. Before joining the SEC staff, Burns worked in private practice, advising investment managers and fiduciaries, fund clients, broker-dealers, and other market participants on a variety of regulatory, compliance and enforcement matters.

Burns received his J.D., cum laude, from Georgetown University Law Center. He holds masters and doctoral degrees from the University of Oxford, and graduated with an A.B., magna cum laude, from Harvard College

Wall Street Women On Top: BrokerDealer and Buyside Gals Score Awards For…

Posted on October 9, 2014October 9, 2014 by admin

Brokerdealer.com blog update profiles Broker-Dealer industry publication Traders Magazine’s “2014 Women of Excellence Awards”

“..Unveiled last night, the 2014 “Wall Street Women: Celebration of Excellence” Awards cited 19 of what one NYSE floor trader called “The Street’s Smartest and Sweetest Gals” for their performance across 19 categories, including leadership, mentorship and trading.

Mary Clark, ETF Trading Desk, WallachBeth Capital

Giving equal accolades to women from both sides of the market aisle (buy-side investment managers and sell-side broker-dealers), in the “most-watched” equities trading category, Blackrock’s Vivian Bakonyi, the buyside firm’s program trading “czarina” shared the top slot with the sell-side’s “dame doyenne of ETF best execution,” industry veteran Mary Clark of WallachBeth Capital.

For Mentor of The Year, Traders Mag judges also came to a split decision, with top honors shared by Citigroup’s MD Of Global Markets Christine Sperry and OhioPERs trader Joan Stack.

BrokerDealer.com salutes all of the nominees and each of the winners!

The full list of winners is available by clicking on this link to TradersMag.

No Sweating This Biotech IPO; Dermira Prices 7.8mil Share Offering

Posted on October 4, 2014October 4, 2014 by admin

Brokerdealer.com blog update courtesy of Renaissance Capital

Dermira, a biotech targeting skin conditions such as psoriasis, excessive sweating and acne, raised $125 million by offering 7.8 million shares at $16, the high end of the range of $14 to $16. Dermira plans to list on the NASDAQ under the symbol DERM. Dermira initially filed confidentially on 6/26/2014. BrokerDealers Citi and Leerink Partners acted as lead managers on the deal.

The Redwood City company led by CEO Tom Wiggins priced its shares at $16, the high end of its target range. It jumped by more than 10 percent Friday when it began trading on Nasdaq with the symbol of DERM. But it finished the day at $15.55, down almost 3 percent.

Despite $68 million in accumulated deficits and no revenue, the company had the best IPO of the three from the Bay Area this week. Together, they are the first companies in the region to go public since late July. Before pricing the shares, Dermira boosted the amount of stock offered by 46 percent.

BrokerDealer Citigroup is “Too Big to Bar”; SEC Silently Removes Bad-Actor Ban on Bank to Sell Hedge Fund Products

Posted on October 2, 2014 by admin

Brokerdealer.com blog update courtesy of various news media sources, including below extract from FinAlternatives.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) quietly provided a waiver to Citigroup that allows the brokerdealer a pass to “get-out-of-the penalty-box” and retain its “well-known seasoned issuer” status (aka WKSI), enabling the firm to resume selling hedge fund investments to clients of its private bank.

Citigroup’s exile from hedge-fund sales has proven short-lived.

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday granted the bank waivers from its so-called “bad actor” rule. That regulation, adopted last year, bars firms with a “disqualifying event” from participating in private offerings. Citi ran afoul of it after its $285 million mortgage-backed securities settlement was approved in August.

Prior to that, Citi had offered private-banking clients access to about 40 hedge funds. Citi can now resume those sales.

The SEC has also allowed Citi to retain its “well-known seasoned issuer” status, without which it could have faced delays in issuing equity and debt.

SEC Commissioner Kara Stein reportedly dissented from the waiver decision. She has in the past criticized the commission for granting so many, saying its website “is replete with waiver after waiver for the largest financial institutions,” creating the impression that “some firms are just too big to bar.”

Citigroup didn’t initially apply for a seasoned-issuer waiver when it agreed to settle charges with the SEC in 2011 because it was already serving a three-year WKSI suspension for separate charges it settled with the SEC in 2010. In that case, the SEC alleged the bank failed to disclose to investors nearly $40 billion in subprime-mortgage assets. The WKSI suspension related to those charges lapsed.

Kara Stein, a Democratic commissioner, dissented on granting Citigroup the expedited filing status, arguing that large financial institutions have been treated too leniently, said a person familiar with the matter.

Ms. Stein has repeatedly argued that the agency has been too lenient on the largest financial institutions and voted against providing a well-known- seasoned-issuer waiver for Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC earlier this year after the firm reached a $612 million settlement with U.S. and U.K. regulators over allegations that traders at the bank tried to rig interbank lending rates. “Our website is replete with waiver after waiver for the largest financial institutions,” Ms. Stein said at the time, warning the commission’s decision to overturn RBS’s disqualification “may have enshrined a new policy—that some firms are just too big to bar.”

BrokerDealers & Arbitration: Let The Buyer Beware

Posted on September 29, 2014September 29, 2014 by admin

Brokerdealer.com blog post courtesy of extract from 26 September column in NYT Dealbook by Susan Antilla

As a former stockbroker whose regulatory file included 41 customer complaints and a job termination, Kathleen J. Tarr was concerned that her reputation had been hurt by accusations that she had disputed. So, like an increasing number of brokers, she sought to have some negative information expunged from her record.

After a contentious phone hearing overseen by three arbitrators for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority last month, Ms. Tarr received the go-ahead on Sept. 10 to have one of the complaints taken away.

Expungement hearings are not open to the public. Robert S. Banks Jr., the lawyer who represented the investor in the case, provided a copy of the recorded hearing to The New York Times, and it offers a rare window into the process of expungement requests.

Finra, which has been under increasing pressure from investor advocates to rein in arbitrators who they contend were rubber-stamping expungement requests, has been reminding arbitrators in emails and on its website that such requests should be granted only in “extraordinary” circumstances. Continue reading →